Of 15 states that have already held primaries to elect the next Republican candidate for the White House, Nikki Haley only won two. Her departure had been considered certain for weeks, but the former governor of South Carolina decided to remain until “Super Tuesday”, when Donald Trump’s total dominance over the Republican electorate was confirmed beyond any hope that the more traditional part of the party might still have. “The time has come to suspend my campaign. I said I wanted Americans to make their voices heard. That’s what I did. I don’t regret anything,” Haley began by saying.
In a brief speech in Charleston, South Carolina, the state where she was born, Haley did not tell her supporters to support Donald Trump, which would be direct and official support for her candidacy, opting instead to say that Trump must deserve conservative votes. “Now it is up to Donald Trump to win the votes of those who, in our party and beyond, did not support him. I hope he does because, at its highest level, politics is about bringing people to our cause, not pushing them away. And our conservative cause needs a lot more people,” said Haley.
After a wave of support that exceeded any expectations, which generated exorbitant amounts of financial donations to her candidacy, in recent weeks Haley had come under some pressure to step aside and leave the way clear for Trump, for fear that the idea of that Republicans were not united if Haley insisted on continuing to criticize Trump at rallies across the country.
Trump is free to claim the Republican nomination, despite facing 91 criminal charges, attempts to remove him from the polls for inciting an insurrection and civil court decisions that force him to pay more than 400 million dollars (367 million euros) for allegations of financial fraud and defamation.
During the campaign, he left warnings that not all Republicans have the courage to remember, such as the fact that they lost seven of the last eight presidential elections in terms of the popular vote (the President is not directly elected in the United States, but through a delegate system in which the person who comes first in a state takes all the delegates from that state, which delegates then choose the President). “It’s nothing to be proud of,” Haley said several times.
Haley, 52, was the first well-known person in the Republican Party to challenge Trump, and the last to fall. Other names, who appeared as indomitable opponents of the former President, ended up abdicating: Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey, and Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, are just two of those who were seen as safe alternatives to the Trump brand which, it was thought, it was losing its appeal to the electorate. He wasn’t, and even with all the accusations he’s facing in court, Republicans continue to overwhelmingly support Trump. After counting the “Super Tuesday” votes, he now has 995 out of a total of 1,215 delegates to take to the Republican party convention in July, which will choose the person who will face the Democratic candidate in November, who everything indicates will be Joe Biden.