NIKKI HALEY, Donald Trump’s main rival for the Republican presidential nomination, suspended her campaign today, having been soundly defeated across the United States on Super Tuesday, as the day the most contests for nomination are held is known.

Mr Trump is now all but certain to face a rematch against President Joe Biden in November’s presidential election after the two rivals won more than a dozen states in Tuesday’s primary votes.

Giving a speech in Charleston, South Carolina, Ms Haley did not endorse the former president, instead encouraging him to win over the coalition of moderate Republicans and independents who supported her.

“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that,” she said.

“At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people.”

Ms Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former US ambassador to the United Nations, had spent the final phase of her campaign strongly warning the Republicans against embracing Mr Trump, arguing that he was too consumed by chaos and personal grievance to defeat Mr Biden in November.

Her departure clears the far-right billionaire to focus solely on his likely rematch with Mr Biden. The former president is now on track to reach the necessary 1,215 delegates to clinch his party’s nomination later this month.

Not enough states will have voted until later this month for Mr Trump or Mr Biden to be confirmed as the presumptive nominees, but both the 81-year-old incumbent and the 77-year-old Republican favourite continue to dominate their parties despite facing questions about age and lacking broad popularity with the public.

In a sign of the growing momentum behind Mr Trump, he received the endorsement today of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who once accused the then president of “disgraceful” acts in the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol by far-right rioters.