Former South Carolina governor and contender for the Republican presidential nomination Nikki Haley announced her withdrawal from the Republican presidential race on Wednesday and called on candidate Donald Trump to “earn” the support of voters who backed her.
Haley said during remarks in Charleston, South Carolina, following a series of losses in GOP nominating contests on Super Tuesday:
“The time has now come to suspend my campaign. I said I wanted Americans to have their voices heard. I have done that. I have no regrets.”
Haley congratulated Trump but did not endorse him. The former governor said:
“I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee, but on this question, as she did on so many others, Margaret Thatcher provided some good advice when she said “Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind. “It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the vote – those in our party and beyond it, who did not support him. And I hope he does that.”
Sources familiar with her plans told CNN before her speech that Haley’s approach appears to leave her open to supporting Trump ahead of the general election.
Haley was the last of a dozen major candidates Trump defeated in the GOP primaries, where he dominated from start to finish – including winning 14 of 15 GOP contests Tuesday – even as he skipped party debates and kept a much lighter schedule of travelling around the states than all of his rivals.
She has vowed to stay in the race at least until Super Tuesday. Her home state of South Carolina was her fourth straight defeat in 2024 – including a loss to “none of these candidates” in the Nevada primary, where Trump was not running and no delegates were at stake.
Haley had little hope of keeping up with the former president as the race moved from contesting the early states, where retail politics is central, to a national race where 56% of the party’s delegates must be allocated by 12 March – most of them in competitive races with a deciding vote.
