The presidential campaign will be suspended by Haley
Nikki Haley’s suspension as a result of a lackluster victory on Super Tuesday and the state and high stakes of the 2020 presidential race
Nikki Haley, the last major candidate to challenge former President Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, will suspend her presidential campaign Wednesday, according to sources familiar with her plans.
The campaign sent an email early Wednesday morning, inviting press to attend prepared remarks at 10 a.m near Charleston, S.C. Her expected suspension comes early after a lackluster showing on Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen states and territories held presidential preference primary contests. Haley only won one in Vermont.
Speaking to supporters in Charleston after that election, Haley said she was pressing on through Super Tuesday, and painted an increasingly dire picture of the state of the country and the high stakes for the presidential race.
“I couldn’t be more worried about America,” Haley said. “It seems like our country is falling apart. America will come apart, if we make the wrong choices.
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She had gotten Trump in a head-to-head race before the New Hampshire primary when Ron DeSantis dropped out. But she still failed to meaningfully close the gap between herself and the former president in primary and nationwide polls.
Haley came into the race with extensive political experience. First elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2004, beating a 30-year incumbent Republican, she then went on to serve as the state’s first nonwhite and woman governor.
She told her supporters that she didn’t believe in glass ceilings. “I believe in creating a country where anybody can do anything and create their own American dream.”
Haley gained national recognition for her response to a racist 2015 shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston that killed nine Black churchgoers. She led the effort to remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds. She became famous for her foreign policy after Trump appointed her to the United Nations.
Haley sometimes seemed to struggle with her message, as she straddled a difficult line between appealing to the Republican base and appealing to independents, moderate Republicans and other voters who are disaffected with Trump. When asked during a campaign stop in New Hampshire if she thought the cause of the Civil War was slavery, she said it was not her place to answer the question.
She stumbled in her responses to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling and the public support for a procedure that many voters oppose abortion rights.
Asked for her thoughts in an interview with NBC’s Ali Vitali, Haley said, “Embryos, to me, are babies,” before clarifying her support for access to the procedure in subsequent interviews. Haley later told Newsmax, “you don’t want to take those fertility treatments away from women.”
Haley was more focused on the age of both Trump and Biden during the last weeks of her campaign. She also went after Vice President Kamala Harris, warning South Carolina voters that the United States would soon have a female president: either Haley or Harris — another jab at Biden’s age and perceived frailty that also drew a contrast between her and Trump.
She tried to distract people from his popularity among Republicans and his loyal supporters within the MAGA base, but her anti-Trump message did not work.
Biden-Trump Rematch: What Do You Want? When Does Haley Really Need a Vice President? [4 Takeaways from Super Tuesday]
Everyone has lots of thoughts and feelings about this election right now. Some people were likely in denial that there would really be a Biden-Trump rematch. At this point, something extraordinary and unforeseen is happening.
The most expansive day of the primaries saw voting go well. Both President Biden and former President Donald Trump dominated across the country and are all but assured of a rematch against each other, however unpopular it may be with voters.
Donald Trump had a little over a 200delegate lead going into Super Tuesday. With a lot of delegates left to allocate, Trump leads by 700. That makes it nearly impossible for Haley to catch up. The only question now is what does Haley do?
Haley won independents who voted in the Republican primaries in state after state this year, but there simply weren’t enough of them. Haley was unable to dislodge Trump voters from Trump, and that was the only way anyone other than Trump could win.
It could mean that Trump was interested in her as his vice president. It’s still a possibility but it depends on what she says and does. She could be in a great position for the year 8 because Trump and Biden will only serve four more years. She’s risen ahead of other GOP candidates. The Republican Party has rewarded runners-up in the past. Think John McCain and Mitt Romney in the recent past.
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High levels of disaffection with the two candidates. Third-party candidates clamoring and threatening to make a difference. Trump’s victory speech about immigration being a threat to the country and how he alone can fix it all, is taken live and uninterrupted on cable news.
If you think that’s about the election, you’d be able to ignore it. The president’s race is one of the things happening again, except it is not an open race and there are also two incumbents running. The country has very clear views of both men.
Both have ratings that are above 50%. Over the course of nine years in the public spotlight, that is largely unchanged for Trump. The dissatisfaction with Biden from some sections of the party showed up again Tuesday night. Uncommitted drew almost one-fifth of the vote in Minnesota, for example, and more than 40,000 voted uncommitted in Colorado, too. That follows up from Michigan last week when 100,000 people in the primary voted for uncommitted, too, largely because of Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza.
Because of all that, if this was an election with anyone on the ballot who wasn’t Trump, this would be a race about change. Instead, it’s one between an incumbent and a quasi-incumbent, and Democrats are going to try their best to make it a referendum on Trump, with a lot on the line.
There will eventually be people who come around to reality. And then they will have to think past “they’re old” and get to who most aligns with their ideals, as imperfectly as either might be for some portions of their parties.
People will vote based on their priorities, whether it’s protecting reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights, or wanting to take a harder line on immigration or protecting their money. And there could be an up-ballot effect, like in states such as North Carolina and Arizona, which feature the kinds of candidates for statewide office in the mold of Trump who have hampered Republicans’ chances in the last three elections cycles.
So there will be a lot more going on in this election for what motivates voters than just the candidates’ ages, and Super Tuesday provided just a little bit more evidence for that.
