Nikki Haley suspended her presidential campaign on Wednesday morning after a disappointing Super Tuesday performance, but reaffirmed her commitment to remaining in the public sphere to advocate for fiscal responsibility and a strong foreign-policy stance.
“I am filled with gratitude for the outpouring of support we’ve received from across our great country,” Haley told supporters in a speech from Charleston, S.C. “But the time has now come to suspend my campaign.”
Haley’s departure came hours after she was bested in 14 out of 15 Super Tuesday states, eking out a lone win in Vermont to deny Trump a clean sweep on the night.
“I said I wanted Americans to have their voices heard,” Haley said Tuesday. “I have done that. I have no regrets. And although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in.”
Haley went on to call attention to the U.S. national debt which she said “will eventually crush our economy,” and criticized Congress as “dysfunctional and only getting worse” and said it is “filled with followers, not leaders,” before calling for term limits for Washington politicians.
“Our world is on fire because of America’s retreat,” she said. “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.”
Haley declined to endorse Trump, instead saying only that she congratulates him and wishes him well. “I wish anyone well who would be America’s president. Our country is too precious to let our differences divide us.”
“I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee,” she added, but went on to quote Margaret Thatcher, who said, “Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.”
Haley said it is now on Trump to “earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that.”
“At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing,” Haley said, an apparent reference to Trump previously “permanently” banning anyone who donated to Haley from the MAGA camp.
Trump used his Tuesday night victory speech to call for party unity, failing to mention Haley’s name even once as he directed his attacks toward president Joe Biden. The Haley campaign scoffed at the suggestion in a statement released shortly after the speech, signaling that Trump will need to earn the support of the independent bloc of GOP voters who were drawn to Haley.
“Today, in state after state, there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump,” spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said. “That is not the unity our party needs for success.”
President Biden, for his part, made an appeal to Haley’s supporters in a statement on Wednesday.
“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,” he said.
He added: “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 joined the race in February 2023, becoming the first Republican to challenge Trump. She outlasted a number of other prominent Republican competitors including Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former vice president Mike Pence, and Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.).
As she surged ahead of the other non-Trump alternatives in the field, Haley campaigned tirelessly in the early primary states and scored a boost of momentum in the first Republican primary debates. But Trump’s hold on the party proved too strong as she racked up losses in every nominating contest save for Washington, D.C., and Vermont.
After failing to score an upset win against Trump in independent-friendly New Hampshire, Haley’s campaign was all but doomed. Still, she stuck around after her eleven-point loss in the Granite State, hoping her home-field advantage in South Carolina would help her court enough voters to take on the former president’s loyal fan base in the state. But she was dealt a 20-point loss in the Palmetto State, where virtually all of the state’s most prominent Republicans had backed Trump.
Before Super Tuesday, she had lost the support of her major outside benefactor, Americans for Prosperity.
Throughout the campaign, Haley had often been accused of trying to be all things to all people, so much so that her platform had at times become muddled. She toed a line seeking not to alienate voters who have defected, or are willing to defect, from the former president, while also looking to attract independent voters.
The 52-year-old called for a new generation to lead and called for mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75. Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. put foreign affairs at the forefront of her campaign amid the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. She also emerged as one of the more moderate voices on abortion on the right, calling for a national consensus on the issue rather than supporting any specific ban.
Her campaign was not without missteps; her failure to mention slavery in a response about the cause of the Civil War, as well as her suggestion that “every person on social media should be verified, by their name,” earned her several bad news cycles.
And whereas Trump has celebrity star power that draws viewers and voters in, Haley often came across as very scripted on the stump. Trump, for his part, often ad-libs without a teleprompter for more than an hour during his massive rallies, feeding off the energy of the crowd. His supporters will wait in line for hours to see him on the trail, even braving sub-zero temperatures to get inside his events. When the venues are small, his supporters will stand on top of tables to snap photos of him.
On the campaign trail, NR spoke to voters who were either either unfamiliar with her record or view her as a puppet of a bygone neoconservative establishment.
While she notched a number of key wins during the campaign, including securing endorsements from New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu and the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity Action, the wins ultimately weren’t enough to keep pace with the former president.
As for what’s next for Haley, she said ahead of the New Hampshire primary that she would not serve as Trump’s running-mate, if asked.
“I’ve said from the very beginning: I don’t play for second. I don’t want to be anybody’s vice president. That is off the table,” Haley told diners at a restaurant in Amherst, N.H., according to a Politico reporter who overheard the comments.