On May 18, 2015, Jindal formed a presidential exploratory committee to determine whether he would run as a candidate in the 2016 Presidential election. Jindal announced his candidacy on June 24th, 2015. He was the first Indian - American to run for president. After poor debate performances and polling numbers, Jindal officially suspended his presidential campaign on November 17th, 2015, saying "this [was] not [his] time". He subsequently endorsed Marco Rubio.