Former President Donald Trump was aghast that GOP challenger Nikki Haley didn’t drop out of the presidential race immediately after coming in second in New Hampshire. Haley failed to “kiss the ring,” as Ron DeSantis has characterized the egregious fealty to Trump among Republicans.
[NOTE: With 93% of the votes tabulated, Associated Press reported Trump as the winner in New Hampshire with approximately 166K votes — a 54.6% share. A competitive Haley received more than 131K votes, giving her a 43.2% share.]
Trump identified the specific pain point Haley causes him by staying in the race as financial, telling Fox News that if she “doesn’t drop out, we have to waste money instead of spending it on Biden, which is our focus.”
Another unspoken pain point for Trump, exacerbated by Haley’s continued candidacy, is that with everyone else out of the race Haley will have no choice but to continue to aim her critical arrows at Trump.
Pecking at Trump’s foibles is something Haley has long been reluctant to do, preferring to knock the also-ran DeSantis and stalking horses like Vivek Ramaswamy. Suddenly now, for Haley in New Hampshire and beyond, there is nowhere to look but up — at a frontrunner who has vulnerabilities, especially among MAGA resisters. Coming late to Trump criticism, Haley found a willing audience when she jumped in. Is it enough of a tease to keep her in?
No modern candidate has failed to gain the GOP nomination after winning both Iowa and New Hampshire, which Trump has now done. But no modern candidate has run for president while facing 91 felony charges, with trials scheduled for before the election.
Haley’s team has to measure that 91 number against 31, which is the number of days she has to decide whether she’ll contend for the nomination in South Carolina primary — where polls show her trailing Trump by significant margins despite its being her home state. Haley’s donors will have a large input in whether she can continue in the uphill battle.
But as the only candidate left, Haley may be uniquely viable as an underdog candidate despite the early losses — simply because of Trump’s legal peril and his deep unpopularity among large swaths of the electorate. In a world where the former President has been indicted four times and faces numerous prosecutions, and where the circumstances surrounding his candidacy may change swiftly, 31 days can be an eternity.
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