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Indian-American former presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has said that she will vote for her ex-opponent and boss Donald Trump in the November US election, breaking her silence on the matter since exiting the Republican presidential primary more than two months ago.

 

Haley, 52, however, stopped short of an official endorsement.

 

Haley, who once served as Trump’s United Nations ambassador, was the last of his major rivals to drop out of the party primary contest, in early March.

 

“I will be voting for Trump,” Haley said on Wednesday in response to a question during her appearance at the Hudson Institute, a top conservative think-tank in the American Capital, as she delivered a speech on national security and foreign policy.

 

“As a voter, I put my priorities on a president who’s going to have the backs of our allies and hold our enemies to account, who would secure the border, no more excuses; a president who would support capitalism and freedom; a president who understands we need less debt, not more debt,” she said.

 

“Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I’ve made that clear many, many times. But (Joe) Biden has been a catastrophe. So, I will be voting for Trump. Having said that... I stand by what I said in my suspension speech,” she added.

 

Haley said she has “no regrets” about her Republican primary bid: “We left it all on the field.” She also thanked the primary voters who have continued to back her even after she withdrew from the race — a potential warning sign for Trump. And she reiterated the call she’d made when exiting the race in March for the former president to reach out to those voters.

 

“Nothing has changed for the millions of Republican voters who continue to cast their ballots against Donald Trump in the primaries and care deeply about the future of our democracy,” Michael Tyler, the communications director for Biden’s re-election campaign, said in a statement.

 

“Only one candidate shares those values, and only one campaign is working hard every day to earn their support — and that’s President Biden’s,” Tyler added.

 

The Biden campaign has been working behind the scenes to reach out to high-profile Republicans and Haley voters. It is also planning to roll out a grass-roots group with dedicated staff workers to organise Republican voters in key battlegrounds.