Haley suspends presidential campaign
Former GOP candidate says she has ‘no regrets,’ doesn’t endorse Trump
Nikki Haley announced Wednesday she was suspending her 2024 presidential campaign after suffering disappointing losses across the country on Super Tuesday.
Haley’s exit paved the way for former President Donald Trump to coast to the GOP nomination, all but guaranteeing a rematch of the 2020 election against President Joe Biden.
Haley told a crowd in Charleston, South Carolina, the state she used to govern, that she “has no regrets.”
“I’m filled with the gratitude for the outpouring of support we’ve received from all across our great country, but the time has now come to suspend my campaign,” she said in a brief speech Wednesday morning.
Haley said she will continue to promote the values she campaigned on: lowering the national debt, a smaller federal government, term limits for lawmakers, standing by allies in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and turning away from division.
“Although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in,” she said.
Haley told her supporters she launched her campaign for Americans to have their voices heard.
“I sought the honor of being your president, but in our great country, being a private citizen is privilege enough in itself,” she added. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you America.”
Haley was the first woman to win a Republican presidential primary, with victories in the District of Columbia and Vermont, where she defeated Trump by nearly 3,000 voters. Haley was also the first Indian American woman to run in the GOP race.
Haley declined to immediately endorse Trump.
“In all likelihood” he will be the Republican nominee when the party meets during the national nominating convention in July, she acknowledged.
“I congratulate him and wish him well. I wish anyone well who would be America’s president,” she said. “Our country is too precious to let our differences divide us.”
A U.N. ambassador under Trump’s administration, Haley toed the Trump line early in her campaign. At the first GOP debate in August, she even said she would support him as the party’s nominee if he were a convicted felon.
However, she sharpened her rhetoric in the final weeks as she courted independent-minded voters. Although Haley insisted that she was not “antiTrump,” she described him as a “disaster” for the Republican Party, “unstable and “unhinged.”
Haley said Wednesday she has always been a conservative Republican and has always supported the Republican nominee, but added, “On this question, as she did on so many others, Margaret Thatcher provided some good advice when she said, ‘Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.’ ”
It is now up to Trump to earn the votes of those in the Republican party and beyond who did not support him,
she said: “I hope he does that.”
Presumptive nominees react
Biden immediately made an appeal to Haley’s base. The president said in a statement that there is a place in his campaign for Haley supporters, whom he said Trump does not want. This winter, Trump said that anyone who donated to Haley was MAGA non grata.
“I know there is a lot we won’t agree on. But on the fundamental issues of preserving American democracy, on standing up for the rule of law, on treating each other with decency and dignity and respect, on preserving NATO and standing up to America’s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground,” Biden said.
Biden praised the historic nature of Haley’s campaign and her criticism of Trump, saying, “Nikki Haley was willing to speak the truth about Trump.”
Though Haley hinted that she wanted an olive branch, Trump wasn’t exactly magnanimous.
“Nikki Haley got TROUNCED last night, in record setting fashion, despite the fact that Democrats, for reasons unknown, are allowed to vote in Vermont, and various other Republican Primaries,”
he said in a Truth Social post.
He also used the Haley news to make a fundraising pitch, telling donors in a text that it was time to unify the party.
Trump did get around to inviting Haley voters to back him, saying Biden is their mutual “enemy.”
McConnell endorses Trump
In a surprise, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell formally endorsed Trump Wednesday morning despite the long-running enmity and estrangement between the two men.
McConnell will be stepping down from his Republican leadership role in November.
“It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States. It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support,” McConnell said in a statement.
McConnell touted major conservative wins he and Trump achieved during his presidency, including the 2017 tax reform bill and “a generational change of our federal judiciary,” including the Supreme Court.
“I look forward to the opportunity of switching from playing defense against the terrible policies the Biden administration has pursued to a sustained offense geared towards making a real difference in improving the lives of the American people,” he said.
McConnell’s announcement followed a series of private talks among aides to the combative Republican leaders, who had not spoken in years.
The Senate GOP leader blamed Trump for the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, calling it a “disgraceful dereliction of duty.” In turn, Trump accused McConnell of disloyalty and has frequently disparaged him on the campaign trail.
Trump got a smaller, symbolic endorsement as well. Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., the only House Republican to have endorsed Haley, told reporters Wednesday morning he intends to support Trump “100%.”
Contributing: David Jackson and Riley Beggin, USA TODAY