Nikki Haley exits race but stops short of endorsing front-runner Donald Trump

BBC News:

Nikki Haley is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race after winning just two Republican primaries.

“The time has now come to suspend my campaign,” she said at a news conference on Wednesday morning.

Her departure will leave her rival Donald Trump as the only Republican left after he dominated Super Tuesday, racking up a series of wins.

Ms Haley did not endorse Mr Trump during her exit speech.

Instead, she congratulated him and said she “wish[ed] him well”.

She said it is now up to Mr Trump “to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him”.

Though Ms Haley came nowhere near to securing the party’s nomination, she found substantial support among voters who had rejected the former president, and in particular college-educated voters.

The question now will be whether her supporters, who made up a quarter of Republican primary voters in some states, will back Mr Trump.

On his social media site Truth Social, Mr Trump said Ms Haley had been “trounced last night, in record setting fashion”.

Ms Haley had pitched herself as a fresh start for the party and the chance to move past Mr Trump. But she only won Vermont and the District of Columbia in the primaries.