Republican senator Susan Collins says she will not vote for Trump

Moderate conservative from Maine says she wanted Nikki Haley to win and will write her name on November ballot

US senator Susan Collins didn’t vote for her fellow Republican Donald Trump for president in 2016 or 2020 – and the third time will not be the charm.

The longtime moderate conservative from Maine told reporters on Friday that she intended to write in former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s name on the ballot in November. The move recalls 2016, when Collins said she wrote in then-US House speaker Paul Ryan for president over Trump, who won the White House before losing to Democratic rival Joe Biden in 2020.

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Donald Trump looking for ‘fighter’ as Republican running mate

Sources close to ex-president say gender and race irrelevant over pick who’s ‘America first’ and believes in agenda

Donald Trump is looking for a “fighter” as his running mate in this year’s presidential election and regards factors such as their gender or race as irrelevant, according to sources close to the former US president.

Conventional wisdom used to hold that Trump was likely to choose a woman or a person of color as his potential vice-president in an effort to broaden his appeal. But aides close to the presumptive Republican nominee currently say he will not take so-called identity politics into account.

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Nikki Haley writes ‘finish them’ on IDF artillery shells during Israel visit

Ex-governor also criticises Biden administration for temporarily withholding weapons to discourage attack on Rafah

Nikki Haley, the failed Republican presidential nominee, signed Israeli artillery shells with the inscription “Finish Them!” on a Memorial Day visit to Israel.

The former South Carolina governor’s graphic display of support came on a trip to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where she was accompanied by Danny Danon, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and a noted hawkish member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in the Knesset.

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Nikki Haley pictured writing ‘finish them’ on IDF artillery shells in Israel visit – as it happened

This blog is now closed. You can read our full story here:

Up next was Harry Dunn, a former Capitol police officer.

He referenced his campaign for Congress representing a Maryland district, which ended last week when he lost the Democratic primary.

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Nikki Haley says she will vote for Donald Trump in 2024 election

U-turn by ex-president’s most enduring rival during Republican primaries provokes swift backlash

Nikki Haley, who emerged as Donald Trump’s most enduring rival and trenchant critic during the Republican primary elections, has said she intends to vote for the former US president in November.

Haley was speaking at the Hudson Institute thinktank in Washington on Wednesday, her first public appearance since dropping out of the race in March. She was asked whether Joe Biden or Trump would do a better job on national security issues.

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‘Join us’: Biden campaign urges Haley supporters to turn against Trump

Campaign ad shows clips of Trump disparaging Republican rival as president courts ‘broad and diverse coalition of voters’

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign released an ad targeting Republicans who supported Nikki Haley in her losing primary against Donald Trump.

“If you voted for Nikki Haley, Donald Trump doesn’t want your vote,” the president’s campaign ad says. “Save America. Join us.”

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Nikki Haley suspends presidential campaign; Biden calls Trump ‘wounded, dangerous’ candidate – live

Republican candidate pulls out of race; Biden campaign says Trump running ‘on an extreme agenda’ in fresh warning after Super Tuesday

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nikki Haley is to pull out of the 2024 presidential election race. It says the candidate is expected to make a brief appearance at 10am ET (3pm GMT).

Haley has won only two primaries – the District of Columbia and Vermont – during her campaign.

Haley won’t announce an endorsement Wednesday, the people said. She will encourage Donald Trump, who is close to having the delegates needed to win the GOP nomination, to earn the support of Republican and independent voters who backed her.

She is expected to emphasize that she will continue to advocate for the conservative domestic and foreign policies she supports and caution against some of the dangers, such as isolationism and a lack of fiscal discipline, that she sees coming from Washington.

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Super Tuesday 2024 live: millions of voters head to polls in the US as Haley suggests she could stay in the race

Donald Trump looks all but certain of Republican presidential nomination as Nikki Haley rejects suggestions of third-party bid and says she may keep fighting

Over at CNN, Ronald Brownstein has an analysis piece which looks a little at the potential weakness of Donald Trump support away from his core base. Brownstein writes:

[Trump’s] performance so far reflects his success at transforming the Republican Party in his image. He’s reshaped the Republicans into a more blue-collar, populist and pugnacious party, focused more on his volatile blend of resentments against elites and cultural and racial change than the Ronald Reagan-era priorities of smaller government and active global leadership that former South Carolina Gov Nikki Haley has stressed.

But while the primaries have underscored Trump’s grip on the GOP, they have also demonstrated continued vulnerability for him in the areas where he has labored since he first announced his candidacy in 2015 – particularly among the white-collar suburban voters who mostly leaned toward the GOP before his emergence. The early 2024 nominating contests have shown that a substantial minority of Republican-leaning voters remain resistant to Trump’s vision.

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Donald Trump sweeps Michigan’s Republican party convention

Former president is awarded all 39 state delegates for November’s national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Donald Trump continued his march toward the GOP nomination at the Michigan Republican party convention on Saturday, sweeping all 39 delegates.

The delegates awarded will fuel Trump ahead of Tuesday, 5 March, when 15 states will hold primaries and Trump’s nomination could be all but decided. The Michigan state party delegates met on Saturday at the sprawling Amway Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, huddling in 13 separate meeting rooms representing the state’s 13 congressional districts.

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‘I don’t know’: Nikki Haley unsure Trump would follow constitution

Trump’s last remaining Republican primary challenger says ‘I don’t think there should ever be a president that’s above the law’

Asked if she thought Donald Trump would follow the US constitution if he is elected for a second term as president, Nikki Haley said: “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know. I don’t – I don’t know,” the former South Carolina governor, Trump’s last opponent for the Republican presidential nomination, told NBC’s Meet the Press in an interview to be broadcast in full on Sunday.

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Trump scores another convincing win against Haley in Michigan primary

Defeated former South Carolina governor has pledged to stay in Republican presidential primaries at least through Super Tuesday

Donald Trump has won Michigan’s Republican primary election, the latest in a string of convincing primary victories as he closes in on the GOP presidential nomination.

The Associated Press called the race for Trump over the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley at 9pm ET.

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Michigan primary 2024: track live results

Follow live as the state’s Republican and Democratic voters choose their preferred candidate for the US presidential election

Democrats and Republicans went to the polls on Tuesday for Michigan’s presidential primary. The critical swing state’s election will prove a test for both frontrunners, Joe Biden and Donald Trump. But a separate Republican convention held on Saturday will determine the final delegate count for the Republican party.

Here are the results from the 27 February Michigan primary:

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Michigan primary to test Biden and Trump among key voting groups

Trump faces local leaders embroiled in factional dispute, while Biden faces a campaign by antiwar activists to abandon him

Voters will make their way to the polls in Michigan today, in a presidential primary that will test how much Joe Biden and Donald Trump should be worried about winning key groups of voters for the general election in the critical swing state.

Both face challenges within their respective parties. After underperforming the polls and struggling with suburban and college-educated Republican voters in earlier primaries, Trump’s campaign in Michigan is dealing with a state Republican party whose local leaders have been embroiled in an ugly factional dispute, while Biden faces a campaign by antiwar activists to abandon him over the president’s continued support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

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Trump soundly defeats Nikki Haley in South Carolina Republican primary

Result called for Trump almost immediately after polls close as former South Carolina governor suffers stinging home-state loss

Donald Trump defeated Nikki Haley in her home state of South Carolina, a stinging setback that narrows her vanishingly thin path to the nomination.

The Associated Press called the South Carolina primary for Trump right when polls closed at 7pm ET, in a clear indication of his large victory in Haley’s home state. Trump locked in approximately 60% of the vote, with Haley hovering at about 40%.

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Another loss, but Haley presses on for Republicans not ready to crown Trump

The Republican contender has exasperated her rival by not dropping out, but she believes not everyone in the party is enamored of Trump

Losing South Carolina is almost always a bad omen for presidential hopefuls and defeat in a candidate’s home state is viewed as irrevocable. But as the last Republican standing between Donald Trump and the Republican party nomination, Nikki Haley thrilled supporters on Saturday by deftly capitalizing on her small but consistent show of support from voters desperate for an alternative.

Trump was declared the winner within one minute of polls closing in the Palmetto State, an unsurprising but nevertheless stinging rebuke for Haley at the hands of the voters who twice elected her governor.

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‘My ultimate and absolute revenge’: Trump gives chilling CPAC speech on presidential agenda

Unbound and unhinged, ex-president vilifies immigrants before devolving into bizarre riffs, including calling himself ‘total genius’

Donald Trump styled himself as a “proud political dissident” and promised “judgment day” for political opponents in an address that offered a chilling vision of a democracy in imminent peril.

In classic carnival barker form, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination accused Joe Biden of weaponising the government against him with “Stalinist show trials”. He pledged to crack down on border security and deliver the biggest deportation in US history if he wins the 5 November election.

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Trump defeats Haley: South Carolina 2024 primary results in full

Voters resoundingly choose Donald Trump over the state’s former governor Nikki Haley – see the results in full

South Carolina’s Republican voters went to the polls on Saturday to choose a candidate for president, with two significant choices left: the state’s former governor, Nikki Haley, and former president Donald Trump.

Haley lost the New Hampshire primary last month by about 11 points, and polling suggested Trump would defeat his former ambassador to the United Nations by about 2-1 in her home state.

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South Carolina Republican primaries: Haley defiant as Trump confident of win

Former governor Nikki Haley urged supporters to turn out in large numbers as Donald Trump declared he’s ‘coming like a freight train’ in November

South Carolinians headed to the polls on Saturday to cast their ballots in the Republican presidential primary, as the state’s former governor, Nikki Haley, fights to hang on in a race still dominated by Donald Trump.

At her primary eve rally in Mount Pleasant, just outside of Charleston, Haley had called on her supporters to turn out in large numbers on Saturday.

When to expect South Carolina results

Key dates for the 2024 election

Who’s running for president?

Haley’s steep odds in South Carolina

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‘Outrageous and unacceptable’: Biden and Harris decry Alabama court ruling on IVF

President and vice-president speak out against ruling while Haley attempts to retract comments on embryos being babies

The decision of the Alabama supreme court on in vitro fertilization, granting legal protections to frozen fertilized eggs, drew fire from President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders on Thursday, laying responsibility for the decision on the US supreme court’s ruling overturning Roe v Wade in 2022.

“A court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant,” Biden said in prepared remarks on Thursday. “The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.”

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Nikki Haley says she believes embryos created through IVF are ‘babies’

Former UN ambassador and Republican presidential candidate expresses support for Alabama supreme court ruling

The Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has spoken in response to the recent supreme court ruling out of Alabama, revealing that she believes embryos created through IVF are “babies”.

In a new interview with NBC, the former UN ambassador expressed support for the Friday ruling by Alabama’s supreme court that deemed that frozen embryos are “children”.

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