Nikki Haley suspends campaign

NEW YORK • Nikki Haley suspended her presidential campaign on Wednesday after being soundly defeated across the country on Super Tuesday, leaving Donald Trump as the last remaining major candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination.

Haley didn’t endorse the former president in a speech in Charleston, S.C. Instead, she challenged him to win the support of the moderate Republicans and independent voters who supported her.

“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. And our conservative cause badly needs more people.”

Haley, a former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador, was Trump’s first significant rival when she jumped into the race in February 2023.

—

Mitch McConnell endorses Trump

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell endorsed Donald Trump in the 2024 election, an awkward embrace marking the final capitulation of the party’s establishment to the former president.

McConnell said Trump has “earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee” after a series of primary victories on Tuesday and Nikki Haley’s withdrawal from the race.

“It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support,” he said.

McConnell, who once condemned Trump as “practically and morally responsible” for the Jan. 6, 2021, mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, has since kept his distance from the former president. In the Senate, he has been a bulwark within the party against Trump populists’ animosity toward internationalist commitments, championing continued aid for Ukraine.

News Services

McConnell, 82, announced in February he would step down as Republican leader after the November election, meaning the legislative partnership he once maintained with Trump won’t be repeated regardless of the campaign’s outcome. But McConnell has his sights on winning back Republican control of the Senate in November, an aim easier to achieve with a unified party.