Wiktionary
a. (context idiomatic English) No longer in competition.
Usage examples of "out of the running".
And just as it did so, the clouds parted for a moment, and a ray of moonlight shone down on what must have been the most beautiful man she had ever seen apart from Father Raphael, who was in any case a full priest and out of the running so far as romance went.
The thing Light would like to do was assemble another gang of helpershe thought Gonner's crew was out of the running.
Arnobius, like his colleagues, tended to assume that non-Academics were out of the running when it came to finding answers to the deep questions affecting all human lives.
Sally was a simple girl, and Chuck was out of the running as well, his brain still no more active than a squashed watermelon despite the efforts of the finest Hagg-Inder brain men, so the choice naturally fell upon the remaining two.
It was thought by some that the upgraded Offensive Avionics System and the B-1B Excalibur would finally bump the FBs out of the running.