Nikki Haley is reportedly planning to announce on Wednesday that she is suspending her Republican presidential primary campaign.
It comes after her weak showings on Super Tuesday, as Donald Trump seems poised to clinch the Republican presidential nomination for a third time.
Haley will deliver remarks to her supporters in South Carolina at 10 am, on Wednesday. She is not expected to endorse Trump but will still urge the former president to appeal to the GOP and independent voters who backed her campaign, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The former South Carolina governor and ex-ambassador to the United Nations was the first Republican to enter the race, arguing she represented a new generation of leadership for the GOP. And she was the last remaining in the primary against Trump, coming in a distant second place in both the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries and failing to notch enough significant wins on Super Tuesday.
But ultimately, even with the backing of a PAC associated with the Koch political network and a strong fundraising apparatus, Haley struggled to define herself within a Republican Party that remains in thrall to Trump. Americans for Prosperity Action, the powerful Koch-affiliated advocacy network, said after the South Carolina primary that it was withdrawing its financial support from Haley, seeing no path for her in the race.
Buoyed by several strong debate performances, Haley popped in the polls prior to the Iowa caucuses, but still trailed Trump by double digits ― even as many of those same polls gave her a better chance of beating US President Joe Biden in a general election than Trump. Haley finished third in the Iowa caucuses with 19% of the vote, behind Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. In her home state primary, Haley trailed Trump by 20 points.
Haley attempted to stake out a more moderate position on abortion, declining to specify a gestational cutoff for a federal ban. She also broke from some of her GOP rivals in her support of US military aid for Ukraine.
Haley, once a member of Trump’s cabinet as UN ambassador, had tried to thread a needle on the former president. At first, she argued that it was time for the GOP to move on from the former president, without forcefully criticising him — and after saying in 2021 that she wouldn’t even mount a White House run against him.
But she pivoted in the final weeks of her campaign, arguing Trump would rule as a king if given a second term. Haley, 52, also argued that few voters want a repeat of the 2020 election with two candidates in their 70s.
“Do we really want to spend every day between now and November watching America’s two most disliked politicians duke it out? No sane person wants that,” Haley said in a February address.
Polling showed that Haley picked up support from some Democrats and independents eager to prevent another Biden-Trump rematch. Even so, Haley, careful not to shrink her GOP base, never campaigned as an out-and-out “Never Trumper” and still praised Trump for being the right president at the right time.
Many of Haley’s policy positions remained undefined through the end of her campaign, as her main argument for office was being able to provide experienced, steady leadership, in contrast to Trump’s “chaos.”
She nonetheless managed to outlast nearly all of her opponents, including DeSantis, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, fellow South Carolinian Sen. Tim Scott and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.