Nikki Haley can claim a moral victory from this week’s results in the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire. She lost to Donald Trump only half as badly as the advance polls had predicted.
Moral victories, though, do not translate into delegates. Barring a miraculous epiphany by Republican voters, her campaign is toast.
New Hampshire was Haley’s big bet. She invested a chunk of her time and campaign money on winning that New England state, just like Trump’s other main challenger, Ron DeSantis, did in Iowa. New Hampshire was kinder to Haley than Iowa had been to DeSantis, but not nearly kind enough, as she lost by 11 percentage posts.
Haley was counting on New Hampshire’s independent streak — it allows nonaffiliated voters to participate in the primaries — to slow Trump’s momentum. Even though she did well with them, she could not peel off much of the Republican Party’s ultraconservative base. It is solidly behind Trump, and there does not appear to be anything — not two impeachments, not 91 felony counts, not a growing number of “senior moments” — that is going to shake that support.
Haley has vowed to campaign on. She could last until her home state of South Carolina votes on Feb. 24 but not much beyond that.
Although she was governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017, it’s more Trump country than Haley country. It’s a heavily conservative Southern state, just like Mississippi, and most of its GOP heavyweights, including Gov. Henry McMaster and U.S. Sen. and former presidential candidate Tim Scott, came out for Trump even before the New Hampshire primary. Scott’s endorsement and that of Rep. Nancy Mace were particularly painful for Haley. She appointed Scott to the Senate to fill a vacancy in 2013, giving him a leg up to win the seat outright over other challengers. And Haley not only is one of Mace’s constituents but she helped the congresswoman fend off a Trump-backed challenger in 2022. Loyalty is obviously short-lived in South Carolina politics.
It’s a shame. Haley has a lot going for her — experience in the executive branch as a governor, and experience in foreign policy as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. At 52, she represents what should be the country’s next generation of leadership if only the octogenarians, such as Joe Biden, or the near-octogenarians, such as Trump, would move aside. She appeals to independent voters, who most likely will determine the outcome in November. She is a refreshing change to the chaos and narcissism that are part and parcel of the Trump brand.
But what Haley is selling — reason, civility, a global perspective — is not what the majority of today’s GOP voters are buying. They prefer a nominee who embodies irrationality, rudeness and isolation, even though it increases the odds of Biden’s reelection.
The incumbent Democrat wants to face Trump again. The GOP appears determined to oblige.
