Haley finally pulls out of the race
DONALD Trump’s last remaining rival for the Republican presidential nomination quit the race yesterday after suffering a thumping defeat on so-called Super Tuesday.
Nikki Haley said she was suspending her campaign after losing 14 of the 15 states in what is traditionally the biggest night of the primary season.
But she did not formally endorse Mr Trump and urged him to ‘earn’ the support of her centrist voters if he wants to win his rematch with Joe Biden in November.
Ms Haley, formerly the US envoy to the UN, quoted Margaret Thatcher and said Republicans should ‘make up your own mind’ instead of blindly backing Mr Trump, who is now the presumptive party nominee, although he needs to win a few more primaries before it is official.
During her campaign, Ms Haley became the first woman to win a Republican primary when she beat Mr Trump in the District of Columbia, which covers Washington. On Tuesday she won Vermont with 49% of the vote compared to Mr Trump’s 45% by attracting support from those within her party frustrated about his candidacy.
But when the results came in, the scale of Mr Trump’s victory became clear as he destroyed Ms Haley in conservative states such as Alabama where he won 83% of the vote to her 13%.
Mr Trump also cleaned up in more moderate states such as Virginia, where he got 63% of the vote to Ms Haley’s 34%.
Speaking in Charleston, South Carolina, her home state, where she has served as governor, Ms Haley said that Mr Trump will ‘in all likelihood’ be the Republican Party’s nominee.
She said: ‘I congratulate him and wish him well’, adding that she would do the same to any potential president.
However, Ms Haley did not endorse Mr Trump and instead quoted Mrs Thatcher. She said: ‘I have always supported the Republican nominee, but on this question, as she did on so many others, Margaret Thatcher provided some good advice, “Never just follow the crowd, always make up your own mind”.’