Analysis by Summer Lane | Photo: Alamy
Upon back-to-back losses in Iowa and New Hampshire in the GOP primary, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has refused to exit the Republican fight for the nomination, despite voters’ national preference for President Trump.
A new political survey from the Messenger/Harris found that Trump is currently holding a whopping 63-point lead over Haley, and with Iowa and New Hampshire in the bag for the 45th president in the primary, there is no viable way for Haley to get within striking distance of the Republican nomination.
Other conservative commentators and pundits have said as much, too. Turning Point USA President Charlie Kirk observed on X, “There is no path for Nikki to be the nominee. There is a path to slow down Trump and help Biden. That is what she is doing by remaining in this race.”
Haley isn’t even on the caucus ballot in Nevada, and she’s polling at a 40-point deficit to Trump in her home state of South Carolina. It’s obvious that the GOP voting base does not want Haley for the nomination – they want Trump.
Yet, Haley remains oddly insistent on remaining in the race, lighting campaign money on fire and delivering speeches into a seemingly empty void. The question, of course, is why? As Charlie Kirk pointed out, her presence seems to be uniquely aimed at simply attempting to stop Trump’s momentum heading into the general election.
After all, Haley is robustly funded by billionaire donors like Reid Hoffman and Charles Koch, Forbes reported. Without such funding in her back pocket, it is reasonable to assume that Haley would have been out of the race months ago.
In fact, any scrap of support in her campaign likely materialized as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) beleaguered donors and supporters read the tea leaves in his presidential bid and shifted their support to Haley in a last-minute effort to stop Trump.
Clearly, that strategy has been unsuccessful.
Trump has derided Haley as being a “globalist fool” who answers to the beck and call of the military-industrial complex. Trump warned in New Hampshire ahead of the primary, “If you want a nominee who is endorsed by all the RINOs, globalists, Never Trumpers, and Crooked Joe Biden’s biggest donors… then she [Haley] is your candidate.”
It certainly seems as if Haley’s campaign is little more than an establishment attempt to bitterly roadblock President Trump’s 2024 momentum – but it’s not working.
Trump has still managed to net historic and record-setting victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, despite the insane amount of money Haley poured into both battleground states.
A report from CNN Politics, for example, revealed that Haley spent more than $31 million on ads just in New Hampshire since 2023, which is double what Trump’s camp reportedly dished out.
The message for Nikki Haley and her backers should be loud and clear: billionaire money doesn’t buy organic, grassroots support, nor can it purchase the respect of the American people.
President Trump will be the nominee with or without Haley’s campaign suspension, but as many GOP voices in the press are calling for unilateral unification around Trump’s candidacy, Americans are likely wondering why Haley can’t seem to read the writing on the wall.
