Nikki Haley, a former U.N. ambassador and governor of South Carolina, has announced she is suspending her presidential campaign, leaving Donald Trump with no major opponents left on his path to becoming the 2024 Republican nominee.
“I said I wanted Americans to have their voices heard. I have done that. I have no regrets,” Haley said Wednesday morning. “And although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in.”
Haley also congratulated Trump on likely becoming the Republican nominee and said she wished him well, but stopped short of endorsing him, instead urging him to earn the support of Republicans and independent voters who backed her.
“I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee,” Haley said. “But on this question, as she did on so many others, Margaret Thatcher provided some good advice when she said, quote, ‘Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.’ It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that.”
The only woman in the Republican race and Trump’s final remaining major GOP rival, Haley campaigned on her foreign policy experience and general-election appeal, casting her candidacy as a generational change that could bring more voters into the Republican fold. She was the first candidate to announce a challenge to Trump and outlasted a large field of rivals who were viewed as more viable opponents to become the final candidate standing between him and the nomination, but her message struggled to appeal to a base that overwhelmingly supports the former president.
Haley remained in the race through Super Tuesday, when 15 states voted and Trump won landslide victories in most contests. Her only wins during the primary season came in D.C., where she handily defeated Trump, and Vermont, where she narrowly scored her second victory. But Tuesday’s vote further solidified Trump’s lead in the race.
Haley’s departure officially clears the path for Trump, who many in the party had already seen as the presumptive nominee after dominating the first few nominating contests. By the end of the race, Haley’s campaign had become a rallying point for the disparate anti-Trump forces in the party, including some wealthy donors, activists and others whose influence has been limited in recent years. Her defeat reflects Trump’s enduring grip on the party, even as he faces 91 criminal charges across four indictments — a factor he has used to build support from
Republicans in his campaign.
Whilst Trump will likely go on to be the presidential nominee for the Republicans, and go head-to-head again with Biden. It is likely that Haley has put herself in a good position for 2028, especially if Trump loses in 2024.