CNN
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Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will announce Wednesday that she is exiting the Republican presidential race, in accordance to sources accustomed to her plans, clearing the trail for former President Donald Trump.

She is predicted to ship remarks in Charleston, South Carolina, at 10 a.m. ET, following a collection of losses in GOP nominating contests on Super Tuesday.

Haley is just not anticipated to endorse Trump, the sources accustomed to her plans inform CNN. Instead, she is going to name on the previous president to earn the assist of voters who backed her. The plan seems to depart the room for her to endorse Trump forward of the final election in November.

Haley, who was Trump’s US ambassador to the United Nations, was the final of a dozen main candidates the previous president vanquished in a GOP major that he dominated from begin to end — together with successful 14 of the 15 GOP contests on Tuesday – at the same time as he skipped the social gathering’s debates and maintained a a lot lighter schedule of early-state journey than all of his rivals.

Haley had vowed to keep within the race by at the least Super Tuesday. She had additionally begun sharpening her assaults on Trump, questioning his psychological health and lumping him along with President Joe Biden, the possible Democratic nominee, as one among two “grumpy old men.”

But her dwelling state of South Carolina served as her fourth straight loss in 2024 – together with one to “none of these candidates” within the Nevada major, the place Trump wasn’t competing and there have been no delegates at stake. (He opted to take part as a substitute within the party-run caucuses, which awarded delegates.)

Haley had little hope of preserving tempo with the previous president with the race shifting into a brand new gear, transferring from early-state contests during which retail politics take middle stage to a nationwide race with 56% of the social gathering’s delegates due to be awarded by March 12 — most of them in winner-take-all contests.

Still, in her marketing campaign, Haley grew to become the primary Republican lady to win two major contests: Vermont and the District of Columbia. The wins prevented Trump from having the ability to say that he shut out Haley in each state, however the victories weren’t sufficient to award her with a big delegate rely.

The former South Carolina governor’s exit demonstrated how little Republican voters have been swayed by arguments about electability — with the social gathering’s base remaining loyal to Trump, who has falsely claimed he misplaced the 2020 election due to widespread fraud, regardless of normal election polls exhibiting that Haley was in a lot stronger place towards Biden.

“I have never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now,” Trump informed supporters at his election evening social gathering in South Carolina.

After Trump gained greater than 50% of the vote in Iowa, the place Haley positioned a distant third, members of the Republican Party rapidly consolidated across the former president and endorsed him. Former 2024 candidates, together with biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, campaigned with Trump on the eve of the New Hampshire major. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis additionally took a parting shot at Haley as he exited the sector, calling her platform “a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism.”

There was not the same rush of assist behind Haley. Though former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson endorsed her, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie didn’t, and was caught on a sizzling mic saying she would get “smoked.”

In New Hampshire, a state her ally Gov. Chris Sununu as soon as predicted she’d win in a “landslide” earlier than polls confirmed Trump pulling forward, Haley failed to defy expectations and misplaced by 11 factors.

On Super Tuesday, at the same time as Haley’s group noticed a victory in Vermont and a robust exhibiting within the Virginia suburbs, “the benchmark for staying in the race was not reached,” an adviser informed CNN. Going into the most important day of voting, the adviser stated, the group had set a free threshold of successful about 40% of the vote in a number of states to credibly keep within the race.

On the marketing campaign path, Haley usually tried to distinguish herself from Trump as the higher various candidate who could be able to reeling in average and impartial voters in a normal election towards Biden.

“I win moderates and independents which he [Trump] doesn’t. That’s why he lost in 2018. That’s why he lost 2020. That’s why he lost 2022 and that’s why in every poll you see he loses to Joe Biden, and I win,” Haley stated throughout an interview with Fox News.

Though she signed a pledge committing to assist the eventual GOP nominee as a part of a requirement to take part in GOP major debates final yr, Haley had in latest days steered she was not certain by that dedication, saying that she would “make the decision I want to make.”

Her Charleston speech Wednesday is predicted to embody phrases of warning for her social gathering. Haley, in accordance to the adviser, is poised to renew her name for a return to conservative ideas and warn towards an isolationist international coverage that has taken maintain contained in the GOP.

Haley entered the GOP presidential race in February of final yr, turning into the primary individual after Trump to launch a 2024 bid. She polled within the low single digits for a lot of the primary six months of her marketing campaign, however gained momentum after the primary GOP major debate in August, the place she referred to as for a “consensus” on abortion and stood out for her international coverage expertise. She was effectively acquired in subsequent debates, which helped gasoline curiosity from voters and donors.

By late fall, many rich Republicans – and a few Democrats – on the lookout for another to Trump began rallying behind Haley. She acquired the endorsement of billionaire Charles Koch’s political community in November and her marketing campaign introduced it raised $24 million within the final quarter of the yr. She was additionally endorsed by Sununu, bolstering her marketing campaign in one among her most promising states, the place 40% of registered voters determine as impartial.

That momentum drew the eye of her rivals, who began digging into her document and tried to paint her as a candidate beholden to her donors. DeSantis and his allies tried to undercut her robust stance on China by highlighting her work wooing Chinese corporations to South Carolina. Haley responded that governors throughout the nation have been recruiting Chinese enterprise on the time however that the US now has a greater understanding of its relationship with China.

Some of the injuries have been self-inflicted. In mid-November, Haley referred to as for title verification of social media accounts, which might have just about eradicated nameless posting. She rapidly retreated after a wave of backlash. Ahead of the Iowa caucuses, DeSantis latched on to a remark she made joking that Iowa begins the nominating course of and New Hampshire “corrects” the outcomes.

Her largest stumble got here on the finish of 2023, when she was requested about the reason for the Civil War throughout an occasion in New Hampshire. Haley failed to point out slavery in her response, which prompted a wave of criticism from Democrats and Republicans. In the times that adopted, she stated that she was unsuitable to miss slavery and highlighted her personal experiences with racism because the daughter of Indian immigrants who grew up in rural South Carolina.

Her views on race have been highlighted once more in January, when she informed a Fox News host that the US has “never been a racist country” regardless of its historical past with authorized discrimination. Haley argued that whereas she had skilled racism in her life, she believed the nation wasn’t based with the intent to perpetuate racism.

But Haley, identified for saying she “kick[s] back harder,” additionally went after her rivals. She steadily blasted Ramaswamy over his international coverage stances, accused DeSantis of “lying” about her document “because he’s losing” and stated Trump was throwing “temper tantrums” as a result of she was gaining on him.

After her third-place end in Iowa, Haley declared the nominating contest a two-person race between herself and Trump, a prediction that got here true after DeSantis ended his marketing campaign days earlier than the Granite State major.

The race grew private between Trump and Haley. The former president elevated a put up that falsely claimed Haley wasn’t eligible to be president as a result of her dad and mom weren’t residents when she was born in South Carolina, echoing the birther smears he had as soon as leveled towards former President Barack Obama. Trump additionally took to misspelling her first title, Nimarata – Nikki is the previous governor’s center title – and mocking her.

Haley, in the meantime, questioned Trump’s psychological competency after the previous president confused her with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi throughout a marketing campaign rally.

“The reality is he was confused,” she stated throughout a January 21 marketing campaign occasion. “He was confused the same way he said Joe Biden was going to start World War II.”

Haley’s critiques of Trump grew even sharper after he mocked her husband’s army service and referred to as for all of her donors to be “permanently barred from the MAGA camp.”

“In that moment, he showed that with that kind of disrespect for the military, he’s not qualified to be the president of the United States, because I don’t trust him to protect them,” Haley stated in mid-February.

Haley’s political profession began in 2004, when she beat a 30-year incumbent in a GOP major for a state House seat in Lexington County, South Carolina. During her 2010 gubernatorial bid, she beat a congressman, the state lawyer normal and the lieutenant governor in a crowded Republican major and narrowly beat her Democratic opponent within the normal election.

At the time, Haley was seen as a rising GOP star and potential vice presidential decide in 2012 and 2016. She was chosen to give the GOP response in 2016 to President Barack Obama’s ultimate State of the Union tackle.

On the presidential marketing campaign path, Haley highlighted her work in South Carolina bringing jobs to the state and enacting conservative insurance policies reminiscent of voter ID and abortion restrictions.

One of the defining moments of Haley’s governorship got here in 2015, when a White supremacist gunman killed 9 Black churchgoers at Charleston’s Mother Emanuel AME church. After years of calling the Confederate flag a delicate situation, Haley referred to as for the flag to be faraway from the statehouse grounds days after the killings.

Haley spent six years as governor of South Carolina earlier than turning into Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations in 2017. As a presidential candidate, she spoke usually of the 2 years she spent on the UN and the angle it gave her on threats dealing with the US.

Her calculated departure from the Trump administration after two years on the job, raised hypothesis about what was subsequent for her. She spent almost a yr on the board of Boeing, an organization she labored with extensively in her South Carolina days, however resigned in March 2020 after executives mentioned in search of Covid-19 aid funding.

In the wake of the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol, Haley stated she believed her previous boss had no future in politics and wouldn’t run for president in 2024.

“I don’t think he’s going to be in the picture,” she informed Politico in February 2021. “I don’t think he can. He’s fallen so far.”

But two months later, she stated that if he did run, she would assist his marketing campaign and never run towards him.

“That’s something that we’ll have a conversation about at some point, if that decision is something that has to be made,” she informed The Associated Press.

When Haley grew to become the primary candidate to problem him after his late 2022 announcement, Trump informed reporters he had inspired her to run.

“Even though Nikki Haley said, ‘I would never run against my President, he was a great President, the best President in my lifetime,’ I told her she should follow her heart and do what she wants to do,” Trump stated in an announcement after she introduced. “I wish her luck!”

This story has been up to date with extra data.

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny, Eric Bradner and Ebony Davis contributed to this report.