Nikki Haley is expected to suspend her presidential campaign Wednesday morning after a disappointing Super Tuesday performance that all but eliminated the former South Carolina governor’s path to nomination.
Thirteen months after launching her campaign, Haley is expected to announce her withdrawal from the race in a 10 a.m. speech, multiple outlets reported, though she is not expected to immediately endorse former president Donald Trump.
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 subzero 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, New Hampshire, according to a Politico reporter who overheard the comments.