Carson ‘leaving’ campaign to lead Christian group

Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson has said that he is “leaving the campaign trail” after disappointing results in the contests to date for the conservative party’s nomination.The announcement, made at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, follows a statement in which he said that he saw no “path forward” in his campaign.Carson will instead take the helm of a Christian get-out-the-vote organisation, My Faith Votes.Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who had a brief surge in opinion surveys last year but has failed to bring in votes, did not participate in the last two Republican debates.His campaign had its high-water mark in the first contest in Iowa last month, where he had sought to appeal to the central state’s large bloc of conservative Christian voters.Carson finished a disappointing fourth and had accused US Senator Ted Cruz’s campaign of spreading falsehoods to peel away his supporters.