South Carolina: Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, ended her presidential campaign, and pointedly declined to endorse her rival, former President Donald Trump. Instead, she told supporters in Charleston, South Carolina, that the effective Republican nominee must earn the backing of her voters.
“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party who did not support him, and I hope he does,” she said in brief remarks to her campaign staff, core backers and the gathered news media. “This is now his time for choosing.” Haley’s announcement effectively ended the Republican primary season, less than two months into it, remarkably early for a contest without an incumbent.
It came after she lost 14 of the 15 primaries held on Super Tuesday, making her quest for the White House all but out of reach mathematically. Haley can boast of two victories in the first 25 contests of the nomination season - Vermont and the District of Columbia - the first wins ever for a female Republican candidate for president. But that was enough to win her only 89 delegates to Trump’s 995 - with 1,215 needed to win.
Haley, who was Trump’s first ambassador to the UN, had painted her former boss as an aging, mentally unsound agent of chaos, unable to respect veterans or service members and unwilling to be faithful to the Constitution.
President Biden, responding to Haley’s decision, said, “Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Haley’s supporters. I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign.”