January 24, 2024 - 10:00am
Donald Trump not only beat Nikki Haley in New Hampshire last night — he effectively ended her presidential campaign, and therefore the race for the Republican nomination. In a span of just eight days, from the Iowa caucuses to the New Hampshire election, Trump obliterated his opposition within the Republican Party.
Haley now faces the same bitter choice that confronted Florida Governor Ron DeSantis after his second-place finish in Iowa. Does she quit now, accepting that her campaign has already reached its zenith, or does she fight on, knowing that the future holds only greater defeats and ultimate humiliation?
She resists, but the answer is obvious: Haley will suspend her campaign before the race reaches South Carolina.
The former United Nations ambassador is in deep denial at the moment, just as DeSantis was in the days after Iowa. She vows to stay in the race, yet she has nothing to look forward to, even though the next serious contest is in the state where Haley served as governor from 2011 to 2017. Under ordinary conditions, against any opponent but Trump, Haley might have reason to think her roots in South Carolina would give her a chance. In any other year, even if she were an underdog, she could hope to do at least respectably on her home turf.
Not this year — polls indicate that if Haley remains in the race, she will lose her home state by a much wider margin than she lost New Hampshire. Trump will trounce her by 30 or 40 points.
DeSantis didn’t want to surrender after Iowa. Seeing that he didn’t have a prayer of beating Haley, let alone Trump, in New Hampshire, the Florida Governor considered making his last stand in South Carolina instead. It’s a more conservative state, and he figured ideology might outweigh Haley’s native-daughter advantage.
This was a daft stratagem, born of desperation. Its outcome would have been a distant third place for DeSantis, after a dismal third-place result in New Hampshire as well. He had nowhere to go but down after Iowa.
With only two candidates still in the race, Haley doesn’t have to fear coming in third. But she’s guaranteed to come last, and by an embarrassingly wide margin even in her home base. Her 43% showing in New Hampshire was made possible by the large number of independent voters who took part in the Republican primary: exit polls indicate as much as 70% of her vote consisted of non-Republicans. She couldn’t pray for numbers like that in South Carolina, or virtually anywhere else.
Why toil for another month on the campaign trail, every day the butt of Trump’s jibes, while calls for her to quit so the party can move on to the main event (the campaign against Joe Biden) only grow louder? By exiting now, she would spare herself weeks of misery, and might earn a tiny amount of credit with Trump, who now holds her political future firmly in his hands.
In 2016, critics claimed that Trump won the nomination because the Republican field was too divided. After Trump went on to win the presidency, detractors continued to insist his success was a fluke. It wasn’t. Despite all the hateful headlines he’s received since 2016, despite the Jan. 6, riot and the scores of criminal charges levelled against him, he still had no difficulty dominating a field narrowed to just two major rivals — and in New Hampshire, just Haley.
Republican voters have embraced Trump knowingly and eagerly. Equally importantly, they have resoundingly repudiated what politicians like Haley stand for — a return to the days when the Republicans were a party of endless wars and globalisation at any cost.
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SubscribeHaley is an hypocritical b*** . At this point, she only gets endorsements or votes from democrat concern trolls.
It’s time to accpet the results, and join her party’s campaign team.
I know it’s fashionable here to berate anybody that challenges Trump, but the debate needs somebody willing to criticize both parties (still dominated by sociopathic and geriatric baby boomers) for endless deficit spending. Haley’s message about the crushing debt our children will face needs to be heard — and action taken before the economy plunges into inevitable depression when those same baby boomers pull the healthcare system down with them.
the debate needs somebody willing to criticize both parties (still dominated by sociopathic and geriatric baby boomers) for endless deficit spending
that would be people like Rand Paul and Thomas Massie, neither of whom is running, and both of whom are minorities within Repub ranks, let alone Congress as a whole. Haley’s pro-war stance is reminiscent of McCain, Graham, and others who never met a conflict they didn’t want to arm, and she pretty well killed whatever chances she may have had with that ridiculous assertion that people basically register to use social media.
The majority of Republican voters want no new wars, its the same for a majority of Dem voters, they would also like an end to the on going wars. This is a good thing
Haley should be like Obama, promise hope and change, but then be like George W and go on with the endless wars
I think the majority of voters want their team to win. Anything else that comes with that is purely coincidental.
Sometimes voters think, you know
Nobody “wants new wars”, but some wars just have to be fought. What do you suggest the US should have done after Pear Harbour, or (more recently) 9/11?
World War II was indeed hard for the US to avoid involvement in. The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in response to the attack by al Qaeda on September 11, 2001 is a different story. That was more a voluntary war.
No state action by Afghanistan was involved. Negotiations with the Afghan government to turn over Osama bin Laden were underway. George W. Bush made a foolish and emotional response that cost our country lives and trillions of dollars, not to mention what it cost Afghanistan and the world.
Korea too was more a voluntary war than one that had to be fought. Iraq I was voluntary, and Iraq II was another foolish and emotional decision by George W. Bush, and there are good reasons for the US not to intervene in Ukraine, Gaza or Taiwan.
I’ve painted a simple picture of what is the complex interaction of many causes. Your basic point that some wars need to be fought seems correct in principle but not proven in practice.
I am not saying that the US fights all its wars well. In fact, since WW2, the US doesn’t have a great record in that regard. My view is that Iraq II didn’t need to be fought because the job (namely the toppling and execution of Saddam Hussein) should have been done during Iraq I. The “boots on the ground” bit of Afghanistan was a bad idea, as it has been for everyone who has tried it (and let’s not forget that the Afghans were everybody’s best buddies when they were killing Russians). Vietnam was a bad idea, not because communism isn’t evil (it is), but because the war wasn’t the best way to deal with it. We will have to agree to disagree on Ukraine and Taiwan. In relation to the latter, I think the world has made a rod for its own back by failing to recognise that Taiwan has been an independent country for 70 years.
Interesting view. My own view is that World War II was a war that probably needed to be fought by the US to defend ourselves. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq I, Afghanistan and Iraq II were not — no one attacked us so no need to defend. Places like Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Gaza and Taiwan we had best stay out of, for the same reason. We have not been attacked, nor have our allies.
Agree. If the job had been done in Iraq 1 Desert Storm then the displacement activity of destroying Saddam in Iraq 2 Operation Iraqi Freedom (when he had learnt his lesson in Iraq1 anyway) wouldn’t have been necessary.
When everyone involved in 9/11 was Saudi and the Saudi hard islamic sect was responsible, organised and financed by Saudi people, it was crackers for Bush and Blair to smash up Saddam.
I get we could hardly invade Saudi, but all Iraq 2 succeeded in doing was setting off a whole chain of state failures in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and elsewhere that are still going on today.
We don’t complete the right job when it’s almost done, then we do complete the wrong job three years later.
So long as America’s creditors abroad continue to buy US Treasury bonds they finance both Federal and trade deficits, and allow the US to buy and lend abroad keeping world trade turning. So, no problem ut equally no easy way to unwind without collapse. Problem is US interventions in the world to keep the wheels turning have become counterproductive making the top wobble.
It’s curious that many of his critics deride Trump for being backward and reactionary yet Nikki Haley’s ideology is a good 15-20 years past it’s prime. Trump has a better feeling for what the Republican voter base are into these days. Hence why Haley has to rely on Democrats to vote for her
The slightly mad thing is that he has a better feeling for quite a lot of more naturally Democrat voters want as well. I believe more and more that the Left/Right model of politics we have had since, well Marx and Engels really, just doesn’t describe the real world anymore.
For me David Goodhart’s division between ‘Anywhere’s’/’Nowhere’s’, the Globalists, upper wealth bracket elites and their service industry staffs (academia, civil service et al.) and ‘Somewhere’s’ (The more localist working class; ‘ordinary people’) that explains the Red Wall phenomenon here in GB, and the Latins-for-Trump for example. As well as the Farmer’s party type uprising and the rise of Wilders, Bardella, Meloni and others across Europe.
The longer the Democrats, and the mildly leftish and (rapidly fragmenting) progressive wedge across the Western democracies keep doubling down on the idea only thickos, bigots and racists vote for ‘Somewhere’, the worse it is going to get for them in elections.
For people used to feeling they’re the degree waving intellectual end of humanity, they’re in danger of being out thought by the thickos.
Haley represents the GOP wing that made Trump’s candidacy possible the first time. She’s backed by Dem donor money at this point with a constituency that is difficult to identify.
Seems the substantial US war lobbies are not content with dominating the Democrats, they also want to sew up the Republicans especially re the Presidency. But Nikki’s warmongering tub thumping is not cutting it. Whatever MAGA may involve, that doesn’t include more foreign wars.
While there is an argument for Haley staying in the race given the situation; the large numbers of Republicans who will never vote Trump, the electability of Trump argument, Trumps age and health and lastly, of course, his legal issues, it’s still difficult.
If Trump does lose support over the next few months due to a renewed focus by the media on his weaknesses, there is a slim chance.
If something health wise or legally happens to Trump, DeSantis will jump back in the race (or at an outside chance, Scott who may be endorsed by Trump as a possible VP selection or even Vivek Ramaswamy) and he is simply much more popular with the broader Republican base. Haley’s support is very shallow, with much of it Bush/Romney/McCain fans and a set of Never Trumpers. By courting that group, she has lost support with much of the base.
I may be wrong, but I think Trump has actually gained more support since 2020. There are many Americans, particularly politically homeless ex-Democrats, who will hold their noses and vote for him. The debacle at Harvard and the rising tide of Jew hate among young activists has exposed the fault lines between Democrats and Republicans, especially among older voters who equate anti-semitism with old-style n8zism.
I imagine Haley would have support from women as well, a group that tuned against Trump in 2020.
Trump lost New Hampshire in 2016, almost pulled out of the race, but stuck with it and won big time.
Let’s hope Haley does the same. She is the only hope the GOP has for a reasonable sensible future.
And for forcing the Democrats also to return to sensible politics.
I downvoted, so I figured it was fair to give a reason:
I think most readers here at Unherd and most politically-active people who find themselves outside the ‘mainstream’ see Haley as an uninteresting, unoriginal representative of ‘Repulicans, Inc.’ – the old-school, establishmentarian, wealthy-business-owner party.
IF it was possible to move forward with that model, Haley might be a reasonable choice, but I think most conservatives at this point simply don’t see the old model as effective or realistic for the times we live in now.
Trump can lose to himself only. Unfortunately he can.
I liked the old model. It gave the US Ronald Reagan.
Nikki Haley in some ways is like an Andrew Yang or a Pete Buttigieg. There’s something about them that makes them stand out from the crowd and enjoy a burst of popularity. But it doesn’t last. There’s just no staying power once the sugar buzz wears off.
Donald Trump lost Iowa in 2016 (barely) but won New Hampshire bigly.