Nikki Haley, the ex-Governor of South Carolina, revealed her decision to withdraw from the Republican presidential contest on Wednesday.
She implored former President Donald Trump to actively work towards gaining the support of those voters who stood behind her.
With the departure of other contenders, Donald Trump stands as the sole candidate in the Republican presidential race.
“The time has now come to suspend my campaign. I said I wanted Americans to have their voices heard. I have done that. I have no regrets,” Haley said during remarks in Charleston, South Carolina, following a series of losses in Grand Old Party nominating contests on Super Tuesday.
In her address, Haley offered congratulations to Trump, as reported by CNN, but conspicuously refrained from endorsing his candidacy.
“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes, of those in our party and beyond it, who did not support him. And I hope he does that,” she said.
Sources familiar with her plans told the CNN before her speech that Haley’s approach appeared to leave room for her to endorse Trump ahead of the general election.
Haley, who was Trump’s US ambassador to the United Nations, also used the speech to take a swipe at the former President’s isolationist foreign policy views, saying, “Our world is on fire because of America’s retreat.”
“Standing by our allies in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan is a moral imperative. But it’s also more than that. If we retreat further, there will be more war, not less,” she said.
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Among a field of twelve significant candidates, Haley emerged as the last to be vanquished by Trump in a GOP primary that he commanded from start to finish. Trump’s supremacy was highlighted by his triumph in 14 out of 15 GOP contests on Tuesday, all while opting out of party debates and maintaining a lighter early-state travel agenda than his rivals.
Haley had pledged to remain in the race until at least Super Tuesday, and she had intensified her criticisms of Trump, casting doubts on his mental acuity and grouping him with President Joe Biden, the presumed Democratic nominee, as one of two “grumpy old men.”
Haley finds herself struggling to keep up with the ex-president’s momentum as the campaign enters a new phase, shifting from grassroots retail politics to a national stage where a significant 56% of delegates will be up for grabs by March 12, mostly in winner-takes-all competitions.
Despite the hurdles, Haley broke new ground in her campaign by becoming the first Republican woman to triumph in two primary contests: Vermont and the District of Columbia. Although these victories prevented Trump from claiming total dominance over Haley, they did not translate into a significant surge in her delegate count.