Nikki Haley has dropped out of the 2024 US presidential race, effectively handing the Republican nomination to Donald Trump.
The former South Carolina governor, who had been trailing the former president in the campaign and performed badly in Super Tuesday’s votes, made the announcement during a speech in Charleston.
“The time has now come to suspend my campaign,” Ms Haley said. “I have no regrets.”
“Just over a year ago I launched my campaign for president, when I began, I said the campaign was grounded in my love for country,” she said. “Just last week, my mother, a first-generation immigrant, got to vote for her daughter for president. Only in America.”
Ms Haley added that she would not stop using her voice for the things she believed in, saying a smaller federal government was necessary for the freedom and survival of the US. She described Congress as “dysfunctional” and “filled with followers, not leaders”, and that term limits were needed for elected politicians.
Just as she was conceding the race, Mr Trump used his Truth Social platform to continue to attack her and urge her supporters to join him. “Nikki Haley got TROUNCED last night, in record setting fashion,” he wrote.
Ms Haley, 52, a former UN ambassador in Mr Trump’s White House, also said America must maintain its global leadership and continue to stand by its allies including Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan – a position at odds with that of Mr Trump.
“Our world is on fire because of America’s retreat,” she said. “If we retreat now there will be more war not less,” she said, adding: “We must turn away from the darkness of hatred and division. I will continue to promote all those values.”
She acknowledged that it was likely Mr Trump would now be the Republican nominee, saying: “I wish you well.” However, she stopped short of endorsing him. “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,” she said.
In contrast to Mr Trump, the President, Joe Biden, praised Ms Haley for daring to “speak the truth” about Mr Trump and extended his own invitation to her supporters. “Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Nikki Haley’s supporters. I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign,” Mr Biden said.
Ms Haley’s decision follows Mr Trump’s landslide victory across 14 states on Super Tuesday, with Ms Haley securing a single primary win in the state of Vermont. She secured only 43 Republican delegates compared with Mr Trump’s 764.
The move hands the GOP nomination to the former president and effectively kickstarts the presidential election campaign, meaning Mr Trump, 77, faces a rerun of the 2020 election against Mr Biden, 81.
Although earlier in the campaign she had said she would endorse the party’s candidate, she had since refused to reaffirm that when asked whether she would endorse Mr Trump, pointing to the 91 criminal charges against him, including attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents.
In February, Ms Haley went so far as to call him “unhinged” and “more diminished than he was”, stating: “The problem now is he is not the same person he was in 2016.”
“We have to see this for what it is,” she said. “This is a fact: He is now saying things that don’t make sense.”
She had vowed to stay in the race until Super Tuesday, saying American voters deserved a choice, although the only other primary contest she managed to win was Washington, DC. Even her home state of South Carolina was won by Mr Trump.
On Monday, she said in an interview: “Our goal has always been to stay competitive. And as long as we’re competitive, we’re gonna keep on running through the tape.” Late on Tuesday, Ms Haley’s campaign dismissed Mr Trump’s characterisation of a united Republican Party.
Her spokeswoman, Olivia Perez-Cubas, said: “Today, in state after state, there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump. That is not the unity our party needs for success.”