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Former UN ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley turned heads on Wednesday after she dropped out of the 2024 GOP primary regarding a potential third-party bid.
Though Haley did not immediately endorse her former boss, Donald Trump, who won nearly all Super Tuesday primaries the previous day, she ruled out a third-party ticket.
“Right now, everybody’s saying, if you don’t—if you don’t support Donald Trump, you’re a Democrat. That’s terrible and that’s not unifying. And that’s not going to get anyone to win a general election,” she said on Fox News. “What I will tell you is I’m a conservative Republican. I have said many, many times that I would not run as an independent. I would not run as No Labels.”
She added that she wanted to remain in the race until at least Super Tuesday to give Americans a choice.
“Sixteen states and territories are going to vote. God bless America that we get to do that. And then we’re going to take it from there. That’s what we’ve always said,” she added.
Haley appeared to make a dig at her main rival during her concession speech as she announced she was suspending her campaign after suffering losses in most of Tuesday’s primaries.
“We must bind together as Americans,” she said at one point during her short speech. “In all likelihood, Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee when our party convention meets in July. I wish him well.”
But she refused to endorse her former boss and the likely GOP nominee formally.
“I have always been a conservative Republican and have always supported the Republican nominee, 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.’
“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. “At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. This is now his time for choosing.”
WATCH:
.@NikkiHaley: “The time has now come to suspend my campaign.” pic.twitter.com/2lDzyBZDgG
— Conservative War Machine (@WarMachineRR) March 6, 2024
Trump responded to his resounding victories in “Super Tuesday” primaries around the country on Tuesday, elections that appear to have cemented his status as the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee.
In remarks to Fox News Digital, Trump said that it was a “great evening” and that it was his “honor to represent not just the Republican Party but our country in leading it back to health and prosperity.”
Trump won Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas, Massachusetts, Colorado, Maine, Alabama, Arkansas, and Minnesota by 9:45 p.m. ET Tuesday night, all of them handily over remaining challenger and his onetime UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, whose campaign was suspended by Wednesday morning.
“It is a great evening,” Trump told the outlet, adding: “Rarely has politics seen anything quite like this.”
“It is my honor to represent not just the Republican Party but our country in leading it back to health and prosperity,” he noted further.
Trump would also go on to win the California GOP primary, Fox News reported, while Haley won the primary in Vermont.
“President Trump dominated Super Tuesday in convincing fashion in ways that have never been done,” a Trump campaign spokesperson told Fox News after the race was called in Vermont. “There is no doubt—President Trump is the nominee, and he will go on to defeat Crooked Joe Biden.”
Fox added:
Trump’s major Super Tuesday primary victories come after he dominated the Iowa caucuses, left New Hampshire with a commanding victory, swept caucuses in Nevada and the U.S. Virgin Islands, won South Carolina with a “bigger win” than he anticipated, and won Michigan.
Trump won GOP contests in Missouri, Idaho, and Michigan over the weekend, and North Dakota Monday.
In remarks at his Mar-a-Lago estate Tuesday evening, Trump lambasted Joe Biden as “the worst president in the history of our country.”
