Nikki Haley plans to drop out of Republican primary race and pave the way for Trump | United States elections

Candidate Nikki Haley, the last rival in the running for the Republican nomination against former President Donald Trump, plans to announce this Wednesday her withdrawal from the race for the White House. The announcement, advanced by the main American media, comes a few hours after the celebration of Super Tuesday, a day in which 15 states voted for their primaries, and which ended with Trump’s overwhelming victory in 14 of them. they. In case there are obstacles on this path, the former president already has the path clear to run in the November elections against an old acquaintance on the Democratic side: Joe Biden.

The candidate is scheduled to deliver a withdrawal speech at 10 a.m. Eastern Time (4 p.m. Spanish Peninsula Time) in Charleston, the elegant city she has chosen as her campaign headquarters.

Haley was the only woman among the 14 candidates who began the race in the Conservative Party. She provided her credentials as Governor of South Carolina (2011-2017) and as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, a position for which she was appointed by Trump when he was in the White House.

He managed to attract attention by launching his candidacy with a criticism of the advanced age of those who will ultimately run in the November elections for both parties, Biden, 81, and Trump, 77, for whom he requested training in cognitive tests. Later, she oriented her message to attract moderate Republican voters and undecided voters, united by the powerful reason, she believed, of fearing a return of the Republican tycoon at the head of the world’s leading power four years later. Other arguments for their attacks focused on Trump’s “disrespectful treatment” of veterans (including Haley’s husband) and the idea that his presidency had brought chaos and instability to the United States.

None of this, not even the fact that she has seemed more aggressive in recent weeks, has helped her in the face of a Trump who has meted out to her the treatment of contempt and insults that he usually inflicts on his enemies ( he called her “idiot”). ultimately proved stronger than ever. Haley, who lost by 20 points in a place as important as South Carolina, a state she governed with notable popularity, had to settle for a few testimonial victories: she won last weekend in the District of Columbia (that is to say in the very Democratic city of Washington) and in Vermont, where it was the big surprise (and the only emotion) of Super Tuesday. It is a small state that provides only 17 of the 2,429 delegates to the Republican National Convention, which will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July. At the time of her withdrawal, Haley had accumulated 89 delegates, compared to 995 for her rival.

Until the end, the candidate benefited from the support of conservative donors who were reluctant to see Trump in the White House again. Given that she is not expected to support the tycoon’s candidacy, the candidate’s withdrawal raises two questions: will her supporters vote for the former president, support Biden, or abstain in November ? The second conundrum is more urgent: where will all this money that supported it go? By now, some of the most famous donors, like Charles Koch, had already abandoned it, realizing the end of their path. And the Trump campaign has already begun these days to maneuver to attract some of these generous contributions to its coffers.

(Latest news. There will be an update soon)

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