Haley to Withdraw From Republican Presidential Contest After Super Tuesday Setback
The lone Republican challenger to former President Donald Trump in the 2024 race for the White House, Nikki Haley, is expected to announce this Wednesday that she is pulling out of the primaries. The move follows a disappointing Super Tuesday performance in which she won only Vermont, and by a slim margin of 50.1 percent to Trump’s 45.9 percent, in the states that voted that day.
According to an advance report from The Wall Street Journal, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations plans to declare her withdrawal at 4:00 p.m. local time in a press conference in Charleston. People close to Haley, cited by the journal, say she will not openly back Trump but will urge fellow Republican voters and independents who had supported her to consider supporting the candidate who has the best chance to unify the party moving forward.
Vermont marked Haley’s second win in the primary season, following her victory last Sunday in the relatively symbolic primary in Washington, D.C. Located in the New England region, Vermont is the least populated of the fifteen states holding contests on Super Tuesday, and it distributes only 17 of the 865 delegates at stake that evening.
Trump secured large margins above 60 percent in Texas, Massachusetts, Colorado, Virginia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, Maine, Arkansas, Minnesota, and California. With those results, the former president could surpass 900 delegates in the tally and move very close to the nomination. The party is widely expected to clinch the nomination on the next primary day, when four states vote and 161 delegates are up for grabs.
The former president celebrated his victory at a private reception at his Mar-a-Lago estate, delivering a speech in which Haley was not mentioned, breaking with the pattern he has followed at most events in recent months.
Haley chose silence publicly despite her campaign’s usual cadence of rallies in the weeks leading up to primaries and caucuses. Her team conducted a sparse night brief by Olivia Pérez-Cubas, the campaign spokesperson, which did not reference whether Haley would stay in the race.
In a statement, Haley indicated there has been broad support across the country for her bid, including in Vermont where she became the first Republican woman to win two presidential primaries. Yet she said there remains a sizable bloc of Republican voters expressing serious concerns about Trump, and that a sense of unity the party needs has not materialized.
The most recent direct communication from Haley came in an email sent Tuesday shortly before polling closed in the early states. The message urged supporters to make a final push to “set the ship straight and save the country.” It concluded with a direct appeal: “If you want to leave behind the drama and chaos of the past, I need your support right now.”
As the campaign landscape shifts, analysts note that Haley’s exit creates space for a recalibration of the GOP field. The focus now turns to how the party consolidates support among conservatives and independents who have voiced concerns about direction under Trump’s influence. Observers say that Haley’s withdrawal may prompt other candidates and party figures to redefine their messages and appeal strategies for the remaining contests and beyond.
Speculation continues about who could fill the gap Haley leaves in the Republican lineup. Some advisors have suggested that voters who backed her in early states may pivot to candidates who emphasize national security, governance experience, and a steadier approach to party unity. The upcoming primaries will test whether the field can coalesce around a single alternative to Trump, or whether the party will remain deeply divided as it moves toward the convention and the general election.
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