Washington: In a major development before the US Presidential elections 2024, Nikki Haley, who was one of the prominent Republican candidates against former President Donald Trump, has dropped out of the presidential race, BBC reported citing CBS news. She, later, announced her decision. It comes after Haley won only the state of Vermont among 15 states from Super Tuesday.
Haley, who served as the 29th United States ambassador to the United Nations from January 2017 to December 2018, was among dozens of contenders who vowed to fight against the former President. Since she announced to contest against the top Republican leader, Trump, lost the GOP primary. On the other hand, Trump, who has skipped the party’s debates and maintained a much lighter schedule of early-state travel than all of his rivals, is still maintaining the lead from the Republican side.
On March 3, she won the Washington, D.C., Republican primary with 62.9% of the vote, versus 33.2% for Trump. "It’s not surprising that Republicans closest to Washington dysfunction are rejecting Donald Trump and all his chaos," Haley campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement.
Who is Nikki Haley
Haley had been among the first Republican contenders to enter the race in February 2023, but she was largely an afterthought until garnering attention for her standout debate performances later in the year. She put her foreign policy expertise at the centre of her campaign, adopting hawkish stances toward China and Russia and forcefully advocating for continued aid to Ukraine, a stance that put her at odds with the more isolationist Trump.
But she was reluctant to completely disavow her former boss - she served as Trump's UN ambassador - despite his four indictments and two impeachments. Trump showed no such reticence, frequently insulting her intelligence and Indian heritage. Only in the last months of her campaign did Haley begin to forcefully hit back at Trump, questioning his mental acuity, calling him a liar and saying he was too afraid to debate her.
In the final weeks of the campaign, she became the standard-bearer for the anti-Trump wing of the party, a dramatic evolution for someone who just months earlier praised the former president in her stump speeches. Still, she said she would pardon Trump if he were convicted in any of the criminal cases he faces, a position she has never abandoned.
Stage set for Trump Vs Biden
With the latest decision, the stage is now set for 77-year-old Trump. He will contest against the Democratic leader and his successor Joe Biden who has also swept the GOP primary on 'Super Tuesday'.
Earlier, Vivek Ramaswamy, an Indian-origin American entrepreneur and politician who founded Roivant Sciences, a pharmaceutical company, in 2014, also dropped out of the Presidential race. Similarly, Ron DeSantis, an American politician serving since 2019 as the 46th governor of Florida, who was among the top contenders of Trump, had left the race in January following Ramaswamy's exit.
(With inputs from agency)
Also Read: Nikki Haley wins Republican primary in Vermont as Biden, Trump sweep Super Tuesday
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