New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu plans to endorse Nikki Haley for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the decision.
Sununu's endorsement could give the former South Carolina governor a further boost among party rivals struggling to make a dent in frontrunner Donald Trump's dominant position. It would follow an endorsement for Haley by the conservative U.S. political network led by billionaire Charles Koch last month.
Sununu, a critic of Trump and a popular governor, has been looking for a candidate to endorse ahead of the state's primaries on Jan. 23. He plans to attend a town hall-style event with Haley on Tuesday night in New Hampshire, the Post added.
Trump remains dominant in the 2024 Republican presidential nominating contest, drawing the support of more than half of the party's voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll completed on Monday.
The poll found that 61 percent of self-identified Republicans said they would vote for the former U.S. president in the state-by-state nominating contest to pick a challenger to President Joe Biden. Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Haley were each backed by 11 percent of self-identified Republicans.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil; editing by Doina Chiacu and Chizu Nomiyama)