Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will drop out of the 2024 presidential race on Wednesday after losing all but Vermont in the Super Tuesday primaries.
Haley will give a speech at 10 a.m. to announce the end of her campaign, the source said.
Haley’s move hands former President Donald Trump the Republican nomination and effectively kicks off the general election with Trump and President Joe Biden unofficially commanding their parties at the start of the primary season after a string of victories.
“The ball is in her court,” a source close to Haley’s campaign said, referring to the former president.
Haley will not announce her endorsement on Wednesday, two people told NBC News. Instead, he will encourage Trump, who is close to having the delegates needed to win the GOP nomination, to win the support of Republicans and independents who support him, one of the sources said.
NBC News predicted a near sweep for Trump in Tuesday’s contests, with blowout races in every state except blue Vermont, where Haley won the state’s delegates by more than 4 percentage points with about 96% of the expected vote.
A member of Trump’s Cabinet from 2017 to 2018, Haley became the first major Republican to launch a campaign against the former president in February 2023.
His campaign got off to a slow start, but gained momentum after numerous strong debate performances last summer and fall. Finally, his measured criticism of Trump — he said Jan. 6 was a “terrible day” and criticized Trump’s behavior during the Capitol riots and other times he’s been president — but he also said he would pardon him if indicted. federal crimes — especially in New Hampshire has gained growing support among more anti-Trump Republicans and independents.
As the race narrowed and Haley went one-on-one with Trump on the campaign trail, that criticism grew sharper. Haley told NBC last month He explained that the former president was “reduced” and “inactive” and his past support for Trump by publicly saying “he’s not the same person he was in 2016.”
“We’ll have to see what it is,” Haley said. “It’s a fact: He’s talking nonsense now.”
But while Haley’s criticism of Trump resonated with some of the online donors who fueled his campaign and his support grew, he failed to pull even single-digit numbers on Trump in nearly all of the Republican nomination contests.