And then there was one.

After a punishing "Super Tuesday", where multiple U.S. states held primary contests for both the Democratic and Republican nominees for the presidential election, Nikki Haley has suspended her campaign.

Having won almost all the 15 primary contests on March 6 (Singapore time), amassing a swath of delegates and only losing Vermont to Haley, former president Donald Trump is the undisputed presidential nominee for the Republican party.

Haley congratulated Trump and wished him well, but the New York Times noted that she did not outright endorse him for the presidential election.

The delegates will meet at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin in July 2024, and officially confirm Trump as their party's nominee for the election in November 2024.

Trump's show

Despite not spending as much time on the campaign trail as his rivals, Trump comfortably led in the polls as they battled each other on the debate stages.

At times, it seemed like a competition of who could embrace Trump more tightly, while simultaneously trying to explain to the voters why they would be better than the original.

One by one, rivals like former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, tech multi-millionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, former presidential hopeful Chris Christie and the sitting governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis all bowed out.

That left Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and the Ambassador to the United Nations under the Trump presidency.

Haley, the penultimate

Haley cast herself as the standard-bearer of the establishment Republicans, pitting herself against Trump's self-proclaimed MAGA supporters, named after his 2016 rallying cry to "Make America Great Again".

However, even after she was left as the only nominee, Haley lost contests in South Carolina, her home state and embarrassingly in Nevada, losing to the "None of these candidates" option.

Despite nothing stopping his stroll to the nomination, Trump's legal troubles may continue to burden his presidential campaign.

The New Yorker is mired in a swamp of legal troubles, including charges for illegally retaining classified documents, attempting to overturn the result of the 2020 election, defamation linked to a previous sexual abuse trial and attempting to overturn the result of the 2020 election (in Georgia specifically).

He has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to make a ruling in one trial, claiming that he is entitled to complete immunity from criminal liability for actions he did while president.

The Supreme Court has already ruled once in his favour, judging that the state of Colorado (which leans Democratic), cannot keep him off the ballot in November.

Top image from X.