U.S. election: Trump faces Biden as Haley withdraws from presidential race

Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has agreed to suspend her presidential campaign on Wednesday, March 6, 2024, ensuring that Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination and once again face Democratic President Joe Biden in November’s election.

Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, will give a speech at 10 a.m. (U.S. time) to address her future in the race, a source familiar with her plans told Reuters.

The source added that the former governor will not give an endorsement.

Haley’s decision to suspend her campaign comes a day after Super Tuesday when Trump beat her soundly in 14 of the 15 Republican nominating contests.

Haley lasted longer than any other Republican challenger to Trump but never posed a serious threat to the former president, whose iron grip on the party’s base remains firm despite his multiple criminal indictments.

The rematch between Trump, 77, and Biden, 81 – the first repeat U.S. presidential contest since 1956 – is one that few Americans want. Opinion polls show both Biden and Trump have low approval ratings among voters.

U.S. election: Haley beats Trump in Washington DC Republican primaries

The election promises to be deeply divisive in a country already riven by political polarization. Biden has cast Trump as an existential danger to democratic principles, while Trump has sought to re-litigate his false claims that he won in 2020.

Haley, 52, had drawn support from deep-pocketed donors intent on stopping Trump from winning a third consecutive Republican presidential nomination, particularly after she notched a series of strong performances at debates that Trump opted to skip.

She ultimately failed to pry loose enough conservative voters in the face of Trump’s dominance.

But her stronger showing among moderate Republicans and independents – she won unaffiliated voters by a wide margin in New Hampshire and notched almost 40 per cent of the vote in South Carolina – highlighted how Trump’s scorched-earth style of politics could make him vulnerable in the November 5 election.

On March 3, she won the Washington, D.C. Republican primary with 62.9 per cent of the vote, versus 33.2 per cent for Trump.

Biden has his own baggage, including widespread concern about his age. Three-quarters of respondents in a February Reuters/Ipsos poll said he was too old to work in government, after already serving as the oldest U.S. president in history.

The Star