After a poor showing in Republican presidential primaries on Super Tuesday, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley suspended her campaign for the White House.<\/p>\n
She effectively ceded the 2024 GOP nomination to former President Donald Trump, who remained the party\u2019s front runner in the race throughout 2023 and into 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d Haley said Wednesday. \u201cOur national debt will eventually crush our economy. A smaller federal government is not only necessary for our freedom; it is necessary for our survival. The road to socialism is the road to ruin for America.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former ambassador to the United Nations also did not endorse Trump<\/a> in her four-minute remarks Wednesday from Charleston. Instead she called on Trump to earn the support of Republicans and independent voters who backed her.<\/p>\n According to polling, Haley had strength among suburban women and independents, both key demographics in winning general elections. Haley often performed better than Trump in hypothetical head-to-head match-ups against President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n \u201cIt 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,\u201d Haley said. \u201cAt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump, who previously said anyone who supported Haley was banned permanently from the Make America Great Again movement, in a statement posted on Truth Social invited her supporters to back his campaign and called Biden the enemy.<\/p>\n \u201cNikki Haley got trounced last night, in record setting fashion, despite the fact that Democrats, for reasons unknown, are allowed to vote in Vermont, and various other Republican Primaries,\u201d Trump posted. \u201cI\u2019d like to thank my family, friends, and the Great Republican Party for helping me to produce, by far, the most successful Super Tuesday in history.\u201d<\/p>\n Biden in a statement Wednesday after Haley\u2019s speech made a pitch to her supporters to back his campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cDonald Trump made it clear he doesn\u2019t want Nikki Haley\u2019s supporters. I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign,\u201d Biden said. \u201cI know there is a lot we won\u2019t 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\u2019s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground.\u201d<\/p>\n Haley\u2019s campaign, which launched last February<\/a>, was the first to kick off after former Trump started almost immediately after the 2022 midterm elections. Her campaign lasted longer than other major candidates who sought the White House. She was the last major candidate remaining trying to loosen Trump\u2019s grip on the Republican Party.<\/p>\n \u201cI think she\u2019s run a good campaign,\u201d said Warren Tompkins, a longtime political strategist in South Carolina. \u201cI think she\u2019s been a good candidate. She is always on message, very disciplined and understands the media and how to work the media.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know at this point how you can say there was anything different you can do because she\u2019s the last person standing. That says something in itself,\u201d Tompkins added.<\/p>\n Haley made the decision to drop out after the Super Tuesday contests. She also had lost contests in the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan.<\/p>\n Haley did not go winless in her run for the GOP presidential nomination. She won the Republican primaries in the District of Columbia and Vermont. However, Trump won the contests in 23 states and territories.<\/p>\n After Super Tuesday, Haley had 89 delegates. Trump had 995, according to the New York Times Delegate Tracker<\/a>. A candidate needs 1,215 delegates to secure the nomination at the Republican National Convention.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s margins of victory in the early state contests were not as large as polling predicted. Haley often pointed out that roughly 40% of GOP primary voters and caucus goers in states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina<\/a> rejected Trump, and didn\u2019t want the former president to have a rematch with Biden.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m an accountant. I know 40% is not 50%. But I also know 40% is not some tiny group,\u201d Haley said on South Carolina primary night<\/a>. \u201cThere are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n In South Carolina and other states, Haley won in areas with higher educational attainment and won support among voters who considered themselves as independent or Democratic voters as she became portrayed as a moderate.<\/p>\n Her vote share in South Carolina was high enough that she carried Beaufort, Charleston and Richland counties in the First in the South primary.<\/p>\n But she still could not catch up to Trump in a one-on-one contest in her home state, marking the first time the twice-elected former governor lost an election in South Carolina.<\/p>\n Haley\u2019s closer than expected margins to Trump encouraged people to keep contributing to her campaign to keep her candidacy alive. In the week leading up to Super Tuesday, she also had been seeing larger crowds as she crisscrossed the country.<\/p>\n For much of last year Haley polled in the single digits, but spent lots of time on the trail in an attempt to lay the groundwork for a surge in polling and support. Besides numerous visits to the traditional early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, her campaign included a visit to the southern border, an address in front of the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America offices, support for Ukraine\u2019s fight against the Russian invasion, and a full-throated defense of Israel both before and after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.<\/p>\n \u201cOur world is on fire because of America\u2019s retreat. Standing by our allies in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan is a moral imperative. But it\u2019s also more than that. If we retreat further, there will be more war, not less,\u201d Haley said Wednesday. \u201cAs important, while we stand strong for the cause of freedom, we must bind together as Americans. We must turn away from the darkness of hatred and division. I will continue to promote all those values, as is the right of every American.\u201d<\/p>\n She was lauded for performances in early debates maximizing her limited speaking times to criticize other candidates such as Trump, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence of increasing the country\u2019s debt.<\/p>\n Haley had battles with her fellow South Carolinian even though she appointed Scott to the U.S. Senate in late 2012. She also visibly showed disdain for entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy on the debate stage as Ramaswamy brought up previous use of TikTok by Haley\u2019s daughter, Rena Haley Jackson. Haley even called Ramaswamy \u201cscum\u201d for invoking her daughter into debates.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was able to use those early debates to kind of break out a bit. None of the candidates were getting a whole lot of attention because the Trump indictments were sucking the oxygen right out of the room,\u201d said Danielle Vinson, a professor of Politics and International Affairs at Furman University.<\/p>\n The debate performances were not a surprise to South Carolinians who saw similar performances when she ran for governor, Vinson said.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s incredibly competent, she can talk about any policy area, she also knows how to throw in attacks with a smile on her face, sometimes a grimace in the case of Vivek Ramaswamy,\u201d Vinson said. \u201cShe was able to do that, which allowed her to rise to the top of all those other people that might not have been as familiar on a national stage.\u201d<\/p>\n But the last debate between her and DeSantis did not help, said Scott Huffmon, the director of the Winthrop University Poll.<\/p>\n \u201cThe DeSantis-Haley debate wasn\u2019t exactly her best debate moment,\u201d Huffmon said. \u201cIt was just two hours of them calling each other liars. She didn\u2019t have as many incredible quips or incredible great lines as in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n Her debate performances led to an increase in polling, but still not enough to catch up to Trump.<\/p>\n Haley finished third in the Iowa Caucus, as she closely battled with DeSantis for second place<\/a>. DeSantis dropped out before New Hampshire, giving Haley a one-on-one match up with the former president. After not campaigning in Nevada and losing to \u201cnone of these candidates,\u201d Haley hoped her home state where she previously had not lost an election would help her close the gap.<\/p>\n \u201cHaley needed every piece to fall into place perfectly for her to have a path to the nomination, and that included the decline of DeSantis, which started, but coming into Iowa, she needed a surprise second and for Donald Trump to get under 50% so his veneer of inevitability was cracked,\u201d Huffmon said. \u201cNeither of those things happened.\u201d<\/p>\n In the weeks leading to her dropping out, Haley lowered expectations and repeatedly said she only wanted to continue to build momentum and close the gap between her and Trump.<\/p>\n Trump has the backing of the top Republican establishment in South Carolina including Gov. Henry McMaster, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Attorney General Alan Wilson, U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott<\/a>, U.S. Reps. Jeff Duncan, Russell Fry, Nancy Mace, William Timmons and Joe Wilson, House Speaker Murrell Smith, House Majority Leader Davey Hiott and many other state lawmakers.<\/p>\n \u201cLargely we all made the same mistake,\u201d Tompkins said. \u201cWe miscalculated the enduring strength of Donald Trump and his hold on the majority of the Republican Party base.\u201d<\/p>\n As campaigning picked up in South Carolina after New Hampshire\u2019s primary, Trump\u2019s campaign consolidated support among many of the GOP members of the State House of Representatives, a move that highlighted that many of those in South Carolina did not support Haley\u2019s presidential bid and her previous sour relationships with lawmakers.<\/p>\n Haley hoped to duplicate her 2010 run for governor when she was behind for much of the primary campaign in a four-person race as she campaigned against the establishment. She was often referred to as \u201cNikki who.\u201d But a statewide ad buy by ReformSC and an endorsement from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who became a Tea Party star, helped propel Haley to a first place finish in the primary, and ultimately win the nomination in a runoff.<\/p>\n But Haley did not get an endorsement of that level in her presidential campaign, as the most prominent politician in the Republican Party of that star power is Trump.<\/p>\n Haley\u2019s exit from the race leaves Trump as the only candidate remaining in the GOP field and allows him to start his general election campaign against President Joe Biden, while only a handful of states have voted.<\/p>\n Haley, who served as ambassador to the United Nations for two years in the Trump administration, for the most part avoided high-profile mistakes, but one comment before voting started took over several news cycles.<\/p>\n She struggled to say slavery was the cause of the Civil War and questions about racism in the country\u2019s past proved to be a stumbling block that brought increased scrutiny amid several news cycles.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think that comment helped her,\u201d said Chip Felkel, who previously worked on the campaigns of George Bush and George W. Bush.\u201cI think she tried to nuance everything. She says America is not a racist country, and then she quickly flips back to how she experienced racism growing up a brown girl in Bamberg.\u201d<\/p>\n Vinson called the comment an unforced error that took Haley off message.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that Trump does any better on that front, but it\u2019s the difference between people deciding to get up on a cold day and go vote for you, or staying home and throw up your hands,\u201d Vinson said. \u201cThat was one of the few unforced errors I\u2019ve seen her make in this last year.\u201d<\/p>\n As the field narrowed Haley sharpened her attacks at Trump as the former president targeted her more as she became the biggest threat to his campaign. In recent weeks Haley pointed to how Trump will be preoccupied with court hearings during the campaign. She criticized Trump\u2019s decision not to debate, his stances on NATO and shot back at him when he mocked her husband\u2019s military service.<\/p>\n As she said chaos follows Trump, she also pointed to general election polls that show her having the best margin against President Biden, beating him outside the margin of error in the general election and in key swing states.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s an argument that didn\u2019t sway the Republican base, and the most fervent Trump supporters<\/a>, many who believe he did not lose the 2020 election and that fraud was rampant in the election. Trump\u2019s own attorney general said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud.<\/p>\n \u201cThe coronation is complete and for all intents and purposes the 2024 general election has just started,\u201d Felkel said.<\/p>\n Haley stood to benefit most from Scott and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie dropping out, but she needed a true one-on-one race<\/a> and find a way to peel supporters away from Trump to win the nomination.<\/p>\n But political observers say she probably should have gone after Trump more aggressively sooner<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cShe went after everybody who was on the (debate) stage, but didn\u2019t go after the guy who wasn\u2019t on the stage,\u201d Felkel said.<\/p>\n Haley in an interview in late January said she didn\u2019t regret waiting to go after Trump, saying she wanted the field to clear for a one-on-one matchup.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I focused on Donald Trump in the beginning, I would have ended up like Chris Christie,\u201d Haley said.<\/p>\n Vinson said Haley\u2019s attacks on Trump needed to be more direct.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat she has done wrong is she has let Trump skate far too long,\u201d Vinson said. \u201cThere were ways to raise doubts about Trump and potentially cut into his support without even attacking him personally.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout Haley\u2019s campaign she pointed to how she could win the general election popular vote, performing best in polls against Biden compared to other Republicans in the race. She pointed to how Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020 and how chaos follows him.<\/p>\n But ultimately, Haley could not overcome Trump\u2019s dominance, his ability to run as a quasi-incumbent, and his increased popularity within the party after being facing 91 criminal charges and civil court judgments against him.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to run a near perfect campaign and even that might not have been sufficient because Trump had such a ridiculous lead to begin with,\u201d Vinson said.<\/p>\n \u00a92024 The Charlotte Observer. Visit charlotteobserver.com<\/a>. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/a> <\/p>\n KeyWords:: e1776214-47e6-5cbe-9d3c-f678139d0fa0 After a poor showing in Republican presidential primaries on Super Tuesday, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley suspended her campaign for the White House. She effectively ceded the 2024 GOP nomination to former President Donald Trump, who remained the party\u2019s front runner in the race throughout 2023 and into 2024. \u201cI have no regrets. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136333,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136332\/revisions\/136333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ne1776214 47e6 5cbe 9d3c f678139d0fa0
\nCH-SCS-HALEY-SUSPENDS-BID-FOR-2024-GOP-NOMINATION-20240306
\nCH SCS HALEY SUSPENDS BID FOR 2024 GOP NOMINATION 20240306<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"