suspended her presidential campaign on Wednesday after being soundly defeated across the country on Super Tuesday, leaving as the last remaining major candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination.
Haley didn鈥檛 endorse the former president in a speech in Charleston, South Carolina. Instead, she encouraged him to earn the support of the coalition of moderate Republicans and independent voters who supported her.
鈥淚t 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,鈥� she said. 鈥淎t its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people.鈥�
Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former U.N. ambassador, was Trump鈥檚 first significant rival when she 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 to clinch the Republican nomination later this month.
Haley鈥檚 defeat marks a painful, if predictable, blow to those voters, donors and Republican Party officials who opposed Trump and his fiery brand of 鈥淢ake America Great Again鈥� politics. She was especially popular among moderates and college-educated voters, constituencies that will likely play a pivotal role in the general election. It鈥檚 unclear whether Trump, who recently declared that Haley donors would be permanently banned from his movement, can ultimately unify a deeply divided party.
Trump on Tuesday night declared that the GOP was united behind him, but in a statement shortly afterward, Haley spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said, 鈥淯nity is not achieved by simply claiming, 鈥榃e鈥檙e united.鈥欌��
鈥淭oday, in state after state, there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump,鈥� Perez-Cubas said. 鈥淭hat is not the unity our party needs for success. Addressing those voters鈥� concerns will make the Republican Party and America better.鈥�
Haley has made clear she doesn鈥檛 want to serve as Trump鈥檚 vice president or run on a third-party ticket arranged by the group No Labels. She leaves the race with an elevated national profile that could help her in a future presidential run.
By staying in the campaign, Haley from suburbanites and college-educated voters to highlight Trump鈥檚 apparent weaknesses with those groups.
In AP VoteCast surveys conducted among Republican primary and caucus voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, between 61% and 76% of Haley鈥檚 supporters said they would be so dissatisfied if Trump became the GOP nominee that they wouldn鈥檛 vote for him in the November general election. Voters in the early Republican head-to-head contests who said they wouldn鈥檛 vote for Trump in the fall represented a small but significant segment of the electorate: 2 in 10 Iowa voters, one-third of New Hampshire voters, and one-quarter of South Carolina voters.
Haley leaves the 2024 presidential contest having made history as the first woman to win a Republican primary contest. She beat Trump in the District of Columbia on Sunday and in Vermont on Tuesday.
She through Super Tuesday and crossed the country campaigning in states holding Republican contests. Ultimately, she was unable to knock Trump off his glide path to a third straight nomination.
Haley鈥檚 allies note that she exceeded most of the political world鈥檚 expectations by making it as far as she did.
She had running against Trump in 2024. But she changed her mind and ended up launching her bid three months after he did, citing among other things the country鈥檚 economic troubles and the need for 鈥済enerational change.鈥� Haley, 52, later called for competency tests for politicians over the age of 75 鈥� a knock on both Trump, who is 77, and Biden, who is 81.
Her candidacy was slow to attract donors and support, but she ultimately outlasted all of her other GOP rivals, including Florida Gov. , former Vice President and Sen. , her fellow South Carolinian whom she appointed to the Senate in 2012. And the money flowed in until the very end. Her campaign said it raised more than $12 million in February alone.
She gained popularity with many Republican donors, independent voters and the so-called 鈥淣ever Trump鈥� crowd, even though she criticized the criminal cases against him as politically motivated and pledged that, if president, she would pardon him if he were convicted in federal court.
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