Donald Trump is poised to be the only Republican candidate running for president as his last rival Nikki Haley formally announced the end to her campaign.
“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,” she said from South Carolina on Wednesday.
“Although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in.”
Her departure clears Trump to focus solely on his likely rematch in November with Biden.
Haley had vowed to stay in the race through to Super Tuesday despite a number of dismal outings in the polls.
But, after Trump won 14 out of 15 Republican primary elections on Tuesday, her campaign has been left with nowhere to go.
Haley, a former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador, was Trump’s first significant rival when she jumped into the race in February 2023.
She had initially ruled out 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’s economic troubles and the need for “generational change.”
Haley, 52, later called for competency tests for politicians over the age of 75 – a knock on both Trump, who is 77, and President Joe Biden, who is 81.
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.
Without her own pathway to the White House, she must now decide whether or not to endorse Trump, who in his speech on Tuesday night called for party unity without mentioning Haley once.
The former president is currently on track to reach the 1,215 delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination later this month.
Follow STV News on WhatsApp
Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
