Nikki Haley to end presidential campaign, ceding GOP nomination to Trump

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will drop out of the 2024 presidential race Wednesday after losing every state but one — Vermont — in Super Tuesday's primary contests, a source familiar with Haley's plans confirmed to NBC News.

Haley's move cedes the Republican nomination to former President Donald Trump and effectively kicks off the general election, with Trump and President Joe Biden taking unofficial command of their parties early in primary season after a string of victories.

The "ball is in his court," a source close to the Haley campaign said, referring to the former president.

Haley won't announce an endorsement Wednesday, two people told NBC News. Instead she will encourage Trump, who is close to having the delegates needed to win the GOP nomination, to earn the support of Republicans and independent voters who backed her, one of the sources said.

NBC News has projected a near-sweep for Trump in Tuesday's contests, with blowout results in every state except blue Vermont, where Haley won the state's delegates by a more than 4 percentage point margin, with about 96% of the expected votes in.

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The Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview on Fox Business that she hoped Haley would endorse Trump "considering again that voters and states across this country have made their choice very clear."

"It is beyond time for Nikki Haley to get out of this race and to unify around the president," she said. "He has been saying this for weeks, really for months. And so we encourage her to do just that, to adhere to the will of Republican voters."

A hand-picked member of Trump's Cabinet from 2017 to 2018, Haley was the first major Republican to launch a challenge against the former