Nikki Haley dropping out after brutal Super Tuesday — and gives Trump a chance to “earn” her support
Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley plans to suspend her Republican primary bid on Wednesday after winning just one of 15 Super Tuesday states, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The former South Carolina governor is expected to formally make her announcement in a speech in Charleston Wednesday morning.
Haley won’t announce an endorsement, the Journal reported, but will instead encourage former President Donald Trump to “earn the support of Republican and independent voters who backed her.”
Haley previously pledged to support the eventual nominee but has since walked that vow back.
Haley was the last major candidate standing in the primary battle against Trump but only managed to win primaries in Vermont and Washington D.C. Still, her campaign argued that Trump was a risky bet for the party in November as he faces 91 felony charges.
“Today, in state after state, there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump,” Haley’s campaign said in a statement on Tuesday. “That is not the unity our party needs for success.”
Haley of late increasingly warned voters that Trump threatens to raid the party’s finances to help pay for his mounting legal fees.
“This may be his survival mode to pay his legal fees and get out of some sort of legal peril, but this is like suicide for our country,” Haley warned last month. “We’ve got to realize that if we don’t have someone who can win a general election, all we are doing is caving to the socialist left.”
Haley’s appeal to a pre-Trump GOP gained little traction however as the former president won all but two primaries thus far and is on the verge of capturing enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination. He won multiple state contests on Tuesday by 50 or more percentage points. Trump leads Haley 995 delegates to 89, according to the Associated Press.
On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden swept every Super Tuesday state but lost a narrow contest in American Samoa to unknown businessman Jason Palmer by a margin of 51 votes to 40.
Despite a successful night, Biden continued to face pressure from the left on Gaza amid a campaign to vote “uncommitted” in Democratic primary contests. Nearly one in five Minnesota Democrats voted “uncommitted” in Tuesday’s contest, more than twice as much as former home state Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn.
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The trend has not been confined to Midwestern states like Michigan and Minnesota — nearly 13% of North Carolina Democratic primary voters voted “no preference.”
“The President believes making your voice heard and participating in our democracy is fundamental to who we are as Americans,” senior Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in a statement to Politico. “He shares the goal for an end to the violence and a just, lasting peace in the Middle East. He's working tirelessly to that end."
Biden currently sits at 1,497 delegates of the 1,968 he needs to clinch the nomination. His campaign has sought to make the coming general election matchup a referendum on the threat Trump poses to democracy.
“My message to the country is this: Every generation of Americans will face a moment when it has to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedom. Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights,” Biden said in a statement. “To every Democrat, Republican, and independent who believes in a free and fair America: This is our moment. This is our fight. Together, we will win.
