- Monday, February 24, 2025
The former US envoy to the UN lost all but one primary against former president Donald Trump on Super Tuesday.
By: Shubham Ghosh
A DAY after Donald Trump swept nearly all contests of Super Tuesday (5), Nikki Haley, his last remaining challenger in the race for the presidential nomination, was set to suspend her campaign and leave a clear path for the former president to contest the election on November 5. She had vowed to continue with her campaign earlier despite a series of debacles in the primaries.
With incumbent president Joe Biden also cruising in the Democratic contests, a rematch of the 2020 election between the two veterans is a certain possibility. In the 2020 election, Biden defeated Trump who was reluctant to accept the results.
Haley, who is an Indian-origin candidate and had served as the US ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump presidency (2017-21), was expected to quit the race on Wednesday (6) morning and will not give an endorsement, sources told Sky’s US partner NBC News.
Read: Nikki Haley backers see ‘last shot’ on Super Tuesday
The 52-year-old Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, had projected herself as a young alternative to the 77-year-old Trump and a strong conservative.
She was also seen as a choice for those Republicans who were turned off by Trump’s ongoing legal hassles. The mercurial businessman-politician faces as many as four criminal cases, including over efforts to influence the result of the 2020 election and handling of documents related to national security.
Read: As race for American presidential election heats up, Haley makes an India promise
But Haley failed to challenge Trump and lost the first five nominating contests and won a solitary primary on Super Tuesday.
She even faced an embarrassing defeat in Nevada’s symbolic Republican primary as voters chose “none of these candidates” over her.
It was only this week that Haley defeated Trump in the Washington DC primary. On Super Tuesday, she could only win Vermont to deny Trump a complete sweep. She also lost in states such as Virginia, Massachusetts and Maine that have large concentrations of moderate voters who have earlier backed Haley.
As long as Haley remained in the race to challenge Trump, both leaders attacked each other verbally. While Trump used Haley’s family background as she is a daughter of Indian immigrants but was born in the US, the latter called him “unhinged” and too chaotic and divisive a president to be effective. She also criticised Trump’s admiration for leaders such as Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Trump’s other challenges such as Vivek Ramaswamy, also a candidate of Indian origin, and Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race in January and endorsed the former president.
