CHARLESTON: Nikki Haley ended her long-shot challenge to Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump on Wednesday, ensuring the former president will be the party’s candidate in a rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden in November’s election.
Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Trump’s ambassador to UN, bowed out a day after Super Tuesday, when Trump beat her soundly in 14 of 15 Republican nominating contests. “The time has now come to suspend my campaign,” Haley told supporters during a speech in Charleston. “I have no regrets.”
Just as Haley was conceding the race, he criticised her before inviting her supporters to join him. “Nikki Haley got TROUNCED last night, in record setting fashion,” Trump wrote on the Truth Social media platform. In contrast, Biden praised Haley for daring to “speak the truth” about Trump and extended his own invitation to her supporters.
Trump and Biden quickly trained their focus on each other as the results became clear. In a victory speech at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump focused on Biden’s immigration policies and called him the “worst president” in history. “Our cities are being overrun with migrant crime,” he said, though crime data does not support that assertion.
Biden again cast Trump as a threat to American democracy. “Tonight’s results leave the American people with a clear choice: Are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?” he said in a statement.
Biden sailed through the Democratic contests, although a protest vote in Minnesota and six other states organised by activists opposed to his forceful support of Israel in its war against Hamas attracted unexpectedly strong results. The “uncommitted” vote in Minnesota stood at 19% with nearly 90% of the votes counted, according to Edison Research, higher than the 13% that a similar effort in Michigan drew last week. Biden nevertheless won Minnesota and 14 other states, including a mail-in vote in Iowa that ended on Tuesday. He did suffer one loss, in the small US territory of American Samoa, where entrepreneur Jason Palmer won 51 votes to Biden’s 40, according to the American Samoa Democratic Party.
The “uncommitted” vote was also on the Democratic ballot in six other Super Tuesday states – Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Tennessee. Support in those states ranged from 3.9% in Iowa to 12.7% in North Carolina, with more than 85% of the votes counted in each of those states, according to Edison Research.
The rematch between Trump, 77, and Biden, 81 – the first repeat US presidential contest since 1956 – is one that few Americans want. Opinion polls show both Biden and Trump have low approval ratings among voters.
Immigration and the economy were leading concerns for Republican voters, Edison exit polls in California, North Carolina and Virginia showed. A majority of Republican voters in those states said they backed deporting illegal immigrants. Trump, who frequently denigrates migrants, has promised to mount the largest deportation effort in US history if elected.
Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Trump’s ambassador to UN, bowed out a day after Super Tuesday, when Trump beat her soundly in 14 of 15 Republican nominating contests. “The time has now come to suspend my campaign,” Haley told supporters during a speech in Charleston. “I have no regrets.”
Just as Haley was conceding the race, he criticised her before inviting her supporters to join him. “Nikki Haley got TROUNCED last night, in record setting fashion,” Trump wrote on the Truth Social media platform. In contrast, Biden praised Haley for daring to “speak the truth” about Trump and extended his own invitation to her supporters.
Trump and Biden quickly trained their focus on each other as the results became clear. In a victory speech at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump focused on Biden’s immigration policies and called him the “worst president” in history. “Our cities are being overrun with migrant crime,” he said, though crime data does not support that assertion.
Biden again cast Trump as a threat to American democracy. “Tonight’s results leave the American people with a clear choice: Are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?” he said in a statement.
Biden sailed through the Democratic contests, although a protest vote in Minnesota and six other states organised by activists opposed to his forceful support of Israel in its war against Hamas attracted unexpectedly strong results. The “uncommitted” vote in Minnesota stood at 19% with nearly 90% of the votes counted, according to Edison Research, higher than the 13% that a similar effort in Michigan drew last week. Biden nevertheless won Minnesota and 14 other states, including a mail-in vote in Iowa that ended on Tuesday. He did suffer one loss, in the small US territory of American Samoa, where entrepreneur Jason Palmer won 51 votes to Biden’s 40, according to the American Samoa Democratic Party.
The “uncommitted” vote was also on the Democratic ballot in six other Super Tuesday states – Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Tennessee. Support in those states ranged from 3.9% in Iowa to 12.7% in North Carolina, with more than 85% of the votes counted in each of those states, according to Edison Research.
The rematch between Trump, 77, and Biden, 81 – the first repeat US presidential contest since 1956 – is one that few Americans want. Opinion polls show both Biden and Trump have low approval ratings among voters.
Immigration and the economy were leading concerns for Republican voters, Edison exit polls in California, North Carolina and Virginia showed. A majority of Republican voters in those states said they backed deporting illegal immigrants. Trump, who frequently denigrates migrants, has promised to mount the largest deportation effort in US history if elected.