Updated 4.14pm -

Republican former UN ambassador Nikki Haley suspended her White House campaign Wednesday, declining to endorse former president Donald Trump but calling on him to earn the support of moderates and independents who backed her in the primary.

"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," Haley said in a televised address in Charleston, South Carolina.

Her decision leaves Trump as the sole Republican candidate for the presidential nomination.    

Earlier, Trump won 14 primary elections in the "Super Tuesday" states, including Texas and California, but lost out on a clean sweep after Haley's surprise upset in Vermont.

The former president, bidding for a sensational White House comeback after being unseated by Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, took home an almost-decisive haul of delegates on Tuesday in his march to the Republican Party nomination.

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia were all called by US networks for Trump, who expressed thanks on his Truth Social site.

His longshot challenger, former UN ambassador Haley, narrowly won the northeastern state of Vermont. 

In the Democratic nomination contest, as expected, Biden won all 15 states, though he lost to little-known challenger Jason Palmer in the small Pacific Ocean territory of American Samoa.

Polling averages from RealClearPolitics show Trump two points ahead of Biden in a one-on-one match-up in the November election. 

                

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