Nikki Haley suspends her campaign, leaves Trump as last Republican candidate

Nikki Haley suspended her presidential campaign on Wednesday after being soundly defeated across the country on Super Tuesday, leaving Donald Trump as the last remaining major candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination.

Haley didn`t endorse the former president in a speech in Charleston, South Carolina. Instead, she challenged him to win the support of the moderate Republicans and independent voters who supported her. `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. `At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people.`

Haley, a former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador, was Trump`s first significant rival when she jumped into the race in February 2023.

She spent the final phase of her campaign aggressively warning the GOP against embracing Trump, whom she argued was too consumed by chaos and personal grievance to defeat President Joe Biden in the general election.

Her departure clears Trump to focus solely on his likely rematch in November with Biden. The former president is on track to reach the necessary 1,215 delegates to clinch the Republican nomination later this month.