Nikki Haley ends White House bid but does not endorse Donald Trump

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Nikki Haley has ended her campaign for president but stopped short of endorsing her rival Donald Trump, capping a bid for the White House that drew backing from donors but failed to attract sufficient support among Republican voters.

Haley announced the decision in a brief speech in her home state of South Carolina on Wednesday morning, a day after Trump defeated her in all but one of the Republican primary contests held on Super Tuesday.

Haley said she had “no regrets” and congratulated Trump on his primary victories. But she did not endorse his bid, and instead invoked former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher as she said Trump still needed to win over her supporters.

“I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee,” Haley said. “But 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.’”

Haley said it was now up to Trump to “earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him”.

“At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away,” she added. “And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing.”

Shortly after Haley announced her exit from the race, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said he would endorse Trump in the general election, despite years of hostility between the two men. Trump had “the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for president of the United States”, he said.

McConnell recently announced his intention to step down from his role as Senate minority leader later this year.

Haley’s run for the Republican nomination defied some sceptics, as she raised huge sums of money from deep-pocketed and grassroots donors and outperformed polls in many of the primary votes. But she won just two primaries: Vermont and the District of Columbia, the US capital.

Trump’s domination of the Super Tuesday votes leaves him on the brink of securing enough delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination, and Haley’s exit paves the way for him to move on to the general election campaign against President Joe Biden.

“Nikki Haley got TROUNCED last night, in record setting fashion,” Trump said in a statement on Wednesday before Haley spoke. He added that he was inviting her supporters to join his “movement”.

The stage is set for an eight-month-long race between Trump and Biden that is expected to be close, rancorous, and extraordinarily drawn out even by American standards.

According to the latest national polling average by RealClearPolitics, Trump has a small lead of 2 percentage points over the incumbent president, and has emerged victorious from his intraparty contest far earlier than he did in 2016, his first presidential race.

In a statement on Wednesday morning, Biden made a direct appeal to Haley voters to get behind his campaign.

“Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Nikki Haley’s supporters. I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign,” Biden said.

“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.”

Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former US ambassador to the UN, had cast herself throughout the campaign as a voice for traditional conservatism on economic and foreign policy, and part of a new generation of political leadership for the country.

But despite strong debate performances and support from a large minority of voters in some primaries, she was never able to overcome Trump’s overwhelming lead among staunchly conservative voters.

In the final stretch of her campaign, she increasingly launched attacks on Trump’s age, character and fitness for office, including calling him “unhinged” — but that more aggressive approach did not resonate with enough Republican voters to imperil his advantage.

Haley also repeatedly warned that Trump would lose a general election against Biden — and suggested the incumbent president would fail to finish his term in office, leaving Kamala Harris, the vice-president, in the White House. The Wall Street Journal first reported Haley’s decision to end her bid.

Her exit will make it easier for Trump to raise money through the Republican National Committee, since he will no longer have any significant internal rivals.