‘I have no regrets’: Nikki Haley drops out of Republican presidential race

Nikki Haley ended her presidential campaign on Wednesday after being soundly defeated in coast-to-coast Super Tuesday contests, in effect ceding the 2024 Republican nomination to Donald Trump.

The former South Carolina governor, who became Trump’s UN ambassador and the first prominent woman of color to seek the Republican nomination for president, declined to immediately endorse the former president as nearly all of his other Republican rivals did. Instead she challenged Trump to earn the support of her voters, calling it his “time for choosing.”

“The time has now come to suspend my campaign,” Haley said, announcing her decision during a three-minute speech in Charleston, South Carolina. “It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond who did not support him and I hope he does that.”

After vanquishing Haley in 14 out of 15 Republican primary elections, Trump is on the verge of securing enough delegates to clinch his party’s nomination for a third consecutive time despite facing 91 criminal charges, attempts to remove him from the ballot for inciting an insurrection and civil court rulings requiring him to pay more than $400m over allegations of financial fraud and defamation. Joe Biden, meanwhile, swept past his nominal challengers on his inexorable march to the Democratic nomination. Haley’s departure from the race in effect ends the primary season, far earlier than in past cycles, setting the stage for a Trump-Biden rematch she tried to forestall.

Haley had previously pledged to the Republican National Committee that she would support the eventual nominee. But Haley recently said she no longer felt bound by the commitment after Trump’s campaign moved aggressively to assume control over the