- Former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina ended her presidential campaign Wednesday.
- With her out, former President Donald Trump is the only major GOP candidate still running.
After a series of second-place finishes on Super Tuesday, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley officially ended her presidential campaign — but said former President Donald Trump needed to win over her voters.
Haley wished Trump well in a speech on Wednesday morning but didn't endorse him.
"It is now up the Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him," she said in a speech in Charleston, South Carolina. "And I hope he does that."
"This is now his time for choosing," she added.
Her dropping out of the race leaves Trump the only major candidate in the running to win the GOP nomination.
Haley had a relatively poor showing on Super Tuesday, losing to Trump in 14 of the 15 voting states. She won in Vermont.
She had amassed just 92 delegates by the time reports emerged that she was dropping out. Trump, meanwhile, had earned 1,057.
After Haley lost to Trump in New Hampshire's primary by just over 10 percentage points, she said she planned to continue her campaign "as long as I keep growing per state."
Haley said that in South Carolina — the state where she grew up, went to college, and governed for eight years — she needed to "do better than I did in New Hampshire," or obtain more than 43.2% of the vote.
She failed to hit that goal.
Haley previously said she wouldn't make any promises about her plans past Super Tuesday.
"I have every intention of going to Super Tuesday," she said. "Through Super Tuesday, we're going to keep on going and see where this gets us. That's what we know we're going to do right now. I take it one state at a time. I don't think too far ahead."
But Haley's path to the nomination became increasingly fraught after she failed to win enough voters on Super Tuesday and Trump gained the vast majority of state delegates.
Earlier in the race, Haley's best bet to win the nomination was outlasting Trump in hopes he'd drop out of the race amid his slew of legal issues.
But Trump continued to win primaries and amass delegates and saw his court cases moving at a turtle's pace. His daughter-in-law is also poised to have a prominent leadership role within the Republican National Committee. So Haley's chance to replace her former boss as the nominee on the 2024 presidential ticket slipped away.
Haley is an unlikely pick for Trump's running mate since she's spent months criticizing the former president's advanced age and mental acuity. A more likely pick, as Trump himself previously suggested, is Sen. Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy, or Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota.