Nikki Haley ends US presidential campaign; says ‘no regrets’
IndianAmerican Nikki Haley suspended her presidential campaign on Wednesday after being defeated in 15 States across the US on Super Tuesday, paving the way for a rematch between her rival Donald Trump and incumbent Joe Biden in the November elections.
After Super Tuesday’s election results, Trump, 77, had established a commanding lead in the delegate count over his only Republican opponent, 52yearold Haley, who denied him a full sweep by winning Vermont.
“The time has now come to suspend my campaign,” she said on Wednesday in South Carolina.
“I said I wanted Americans to have their voices heard. I have done that. I have no regrets,” she added. “Although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in.”
More than a third of all the Republican delegates were at stake on Super Tuesday, the biggest haul of any date on
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley announced that she is suspending her campaign in South Carolina, US
the 2024 primary calendar.
WHAT NEXT?
Haley, a former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador, has not made a final decision as to whether or not she would endorse her exboss Trump.
People who are close to Haley have different opinions. Some believe that it would be good for her to back Trump because she would be viewed as a team player. Others ardently oppose her endorsing him.
During her campaign, Haley scripted history by becoming the first woman ever to win a Republican presidential primary. She is also the first IndianAmerican to have won either the Democratic or the Republican primaries. The three other previous Indian American presidential aspirants — Bobby Jindal in 2016, Kamala Harris in 2020 and Vivek Ramaswamy in 2024 — had failed to win even one primary.
Haley, whose parents moved to the United States in the 1960s, was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She has long used her middle name Nikki and adopted the surname Haley after her marriage in 1996.
During the campaign, Trump repeatedly referred to Haley as “Nimbra” in a rant on his Truth Social account, adding her to the list of foes he has targeted with racist attacks.
Haley’s father, Ajit Singh Randhawa, is a professor of biology who got his PhD at the University of British Columbia and later moved to Bamberg, a segregated town where Haley was born, to teach at nearby Voorhees College — a historically Black university.