Nikki Haley will reportedly end her long-shot Republican presidential primary bid after losing 14 of the 15 “Super Tuesday” contests to Donald Trump.

The former South Carolina governor, who became Trump’s United Nations ambassador and the first prominent woman of color to seek the Republican nomination for president, is due to deliver remarks near her South Carolina home at 10am ET on Wednesday.

The suspension of her campaign was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, quoting people familiar with her plans.

Haley has endured a long string of losses, which began with Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and her home state of South Carolina. On Tuesday, when voters in 15 states cast ballots in contests known as Super Tuesday, Haley lost every state apart from Vermont. She had previously only won in Washington DC.

Among Trump’s prominent primary rivals, Haley was the last candidate left standing, so her withdrawal ensures that Trump will capture the Republican nomination.

The WSJ reported that Haley won’t announce an endorsement on Wednesday, but will encourage Trump to earn the support of Republican and independent voters who backed her.

The move leaves Trump clear to claim the Republican nomination for a third election running – even though he faces 91 criminal charges, attempts to remove him from the ballot for inciting an insurrection, and civil court rulings requiring him to pay more than $400m over allegations of financial fraud and defamation.

The prospect of the Republican nominee for president being a convicted felon draws ever closer.

Haley was governor of South Carolina from 2012 to 2017, before resigning in the aftermath of Trump’s shock win in the 2016 presidential election, in order to be appointed US ambassador to the UN. Despite her popularity in South Carolina when she was governor, Haley was unable to carry her home state, sealing her fate in the Republican primary.

In a surprise move, Haley resigned her role as US ambassador to the UN in 2018. Widely thought to have ambitions to run for president after Trump departed the scene, she denied speculation linking her to a place on his ticket.

Trump did not leave the scene – even after inciting the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January 2021, in an attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.

When the 2024 race kicked off in earnest, Haley sought to position herself as a fresh alternative to Trump. She made steady inroads in polling, benefiting particularly from strong debate performances while Trump refused to take the stage. For a stretch of the election cycle, as the Florida governor Ron DeSantis saw his much-hyped campaign stall then go into freefall, polls suggested Haley was becoming the most viable second choice for Republican voters.

The 51-year-old made electability a centerpiece of her message, arguing she was the only Republican who could beat Biden in a general election. On the campaign trail, she liked to remind voters: “Republicans have lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president – that’s nothing to be proud of.”

Allies argued that her support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and her relatively nuanced stance on abortion – she called for a “consensus” rather than backing a proposal to ban the procedure after a specific number of weeks – would help the party appeal to independents and suburban women alienated by Trump.

Haley also emphasized her relative youth, asking Republicans to put their faith in a “new generation” of leaders. She made a splash with a call for “mental competency tests” for politicians over 75, a group pointedly including Biden and Trump.

The former governor leaned heavily on her biography, presenting herself as the “proud daughter of Indian immigrants” raised in the south, an upbringing she said provided a unique perspective on US race relations. On the campaign trail, Haley often received loud applause when she told Republicans: “America is not a racist country.”

In a campaign trail routine, she often sought to play up the possibility that she could be the first woman elected to US president, only to insist that she did not believe in “identity politics”.

But Haley also had to navigate a tricky relationship with Trump, a former boss she once promised not to challenge. Veering between mild criticism and dutiful praise, she attempted to shine as a figure of the party establishment without alienating the party’s populist base.

She could not quite squeeze DeSantis out of second place in Iowa – both a long way behind Trump, the winner – but she did see him leave the race before New Hampshire became the second state to vote. She notched her best performance in the New Hampshire primary, but she still fell 11 points short of Trump in the second state to vote.

Ultimately, though, Haley simply could not convince enough Republicans it was time to dump Trump.