Is it over for Nikki Haley?
NEW YORK, USA- Valentine’s Day 2023, former Governor of South Carolina and ambassador to the United Nations under Donald Trump, Nikki Haley announced her candidacy for the Presidency of the United States in a long-shot run to defeat the man who was being treated as an incumbent president by everyone except the Republican establishment. Today, after three defeats in the Republican primary, one embarrassingly to a “None of the Above” option, Haley’s campaign is on thin ice, and now the question has turned from, can she beat Former President Trump, to will she even stay in the campaign?
Haley and her campaign staffers have been clear that they intend to stay in the race till the last delegate is counted, but with her lackluster performance in the primaries so far, and the simple fact that every campaign intends to make it to the last contest until the very last day of it’s running, we cannot be certain that Mrs. Haley can keep up the campaign financially or practically into Super Tuesday or beyond.
First, there is the financial aspect of keeping this beyond doomed campaign alive, it costs money to contest elections. Money that a campaign might not have, money that might more reasonably spent on a General Election campaign to unseat President Biden, and keep control of a incredibly slim majority in the House of Representatives and take crucial seats in the Senate, so that even if the presumptive nominee Trump loses the general election to President Biden, Republicans can still be in some sort of seat of power on January 21st 2025. These are all things that should be more important to Mrs. Haley than a long-shot attempt at the nomination that will more likely than not end up in failure, and if she pursues it too aggressively, embarrassment. It is clear that this combination of financial troubles and a large distraction from what could be essential resources needed for the General Election alongside the embarrassment of losing a long and drawn out primary process could be a large contribution in getting Nikki Haley to drop out soon, especially if she ends up losing the South Carolina primary by a large margin, as is currently expected by pundits and pollsters.
The next big reason for Mrs Haley to bite the bullet and drop out is the political reasoning behind it. If the party is largely behind Trump already, as the RNC has clearly demonstrated that it is, then what is the point in making the party seem more divided and more chaotic than it really is? Clearly that type of chaotic infighting for the nomination when the winner is already seemingly anointed is only a risk for the GOP and cannot be seen by any means as a positive. While it is true that there are certainly more contests in this primary, the opportunities for Nikki Haley to gain headlines and win contests to gain momentum has passed, now is the time where the dust has settled and the winner has emerged. Whether or not that can be accepted by Haley is unclear, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
Now, while it is true that Haley has many reasons to drop out and endorse Trump, there are still some reasons as to why one would want to stay in the race, and still a glimmer of hope for the Haley campaign. Firstly, there are other examples of campaigns being considered ‘dead’ at this stage of the primary but being able to bounce back and win South Carolina and the nomination as a whole, Joe Biden in the 2020 democratic campaign being one of the most recent and obvious examples of this type of political resurrection. The problem with this, is that Haley is behind Trump significantly in South Carolina, and is in danger of not even being able to win a single contest, much less the entire nomination. It is also true, that the GOP deserves a real primary, and a real choice in the primary, and not just a hero’s welcome to Donald Trump, who is currently facing 91 criminal charges in various indictments and was recently ordered to pay 450 million USD in a criminal fraud case in the state of New York. A real contest, shows that the Republican party is not simply the part of Trump but instead an actual political party, with values and ideals that go beyond any one person or president, and even past the whole MAGA movement in totality. A message like that may be good for voters in 2028 either if Donald Trump wins and proves to have another scandal-ridden and unpopular presidency, or if he loses and voters again show that the MAGA populism that he represents is not a popular one, and not a way to win elections when presented with more moderate and sensible options. All of which are decent, sensible reasons to stay in the race as long as feasible, but the question is do those reasons outweigh the reasons to drop out in the political calculations of the Nikki Haley campaign?
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