The results of the South Carolina primary should have ended the race for the Republican nomination for candidate Nikki Haley. Of all the primaries, South Carolina was the one in which Haley should have performed best. It is her home state; she served as its representative and also as a successful governor from 2011 and 2017. However, former President Donald Trump won in dominant fashion by more than 20 points.
Trump won 59.8% of the vote in South Carolina; while Haley earned just 39.4%. Despite her defeat, and having lost in all the primaries and caucuses held so far, Haley appeared on the night to maintain that she will remain in the race for the Republican nomination.
"I said earlier this week that no matter what happens in South Carolina, I will continue to run for office ... I am a woman of my word," Haley said on the night of Feb. 24.
A conspiracy
For supporters of former President Donald Trump, there is no rational way to explain Nikki Haley's insistence on participating in a primary in which she can't win. For this reason, many important pro-Trump voices maintain that Haley is not participating to win the nomination.
"There was zero chance Nikki Haley was going to drop out today. She isn't running to win. When you understand her true role, you'll see why winning the primary isn't necessary for achieving it," wrote conservative commentator Jack Posobiec on X.
For some important voices, Haley is only campaigning to widen the cracks within the Republican Party and hurt former President Trump.
"Nikki Haley gets an awful lot of free media time for someone who hasn’t come close to winning any race including in her home state despite open primaries and enormous sums of money from wealthy Democrats trying to prop her up," wrote TV and radio host Mark Levin.
"But it’s not about her, she says. She’s part of a RINO [Republican In Name Only] movement working to sabotage Trump, as she and they claim Trump can’t win. That’s their goal," Levin continued.
Some even, like the former candidate and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, whose name is strongly linked to Trump's vice president opening, maintain that Haley's presence in the campaign is framed within a plan that depends on the successful judicial juggling against the former president. Trump faces 91 charges to date.
"Here’s the plot: 1. Narrow this to a 2-horse race between Trump & a puppet they can control. 2. Eliminate Trump. 3. Trot their puppet into the White House," he said in early January about Haley in a post on X accompanied by a clip from Tim Cast's podcast.
Then, in another post, he said, "There’s no way she can defeat Trump through the front door, so her donor puppet masters are propping her up long enough while plotting to eliminate Trump from the ballot."
Don’t take it just from me. Here are direct quotes from WSJ editorial board tonight. It’s all hiding in plain sight:
“If she can remain competitive, there’s an argument for Ms. Haley to stay in the race through the July convention. Mr. Trump faces a treacherous legal road…Ms.…
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) January 24, 2024
Although the above are just hypotheses, some facts could strengthen the conspiracy narrative. Many of Haley's voters in the open primaries are either independents or Democrats, and several of her donors also donate to the Democratic Party.
In fact, one of the big donors to Haley's campaign is Reid Hoffman, billionaire founder of LinkedIn, an active Democratic donor who was also a key financier of the lawsuit filed by journalist E. Jean Carroll against Trump.
In a article published by Politico On Feb. 20, journalists Zach Montellaro and Jessica Pier revealed that "more than 5,200 donors to Biden’s 2020 campaign have backed Haley financially, including roughly 1,600 who gave more than $500,000 in January alone."
"Crossover donors, who give to politicians of both parties, are generally rare in politics, making the number of donors who previously gave to Biden notable. It’s especially striking because Haley is currently running in the Republican primary to be the nominee to take on Biden in November," reads the Politico article.
Sending a message that it's not Trump's party
Mario Hernández, a Republican voter who lives in South Carolina, told Voz Media that he supports Haley "not only because of her excellent performance as governor of my state, but to demonstrate that there are Republicans who do not want Donald Trump."
"There is no conspiracy here," says Hernández, "here it is clear that we do not want Trump. We may be fewer, but we are significant. And that is the spirit of Haley's campaign."
For Hernández, supporting Nikki Haley is not about the candidate winning, but about expressing a message within the Republican Party.
"As much as it is believed that this is Trump's party, that is false. The 39% that supported Haley here in the state shows that this is not the case," he maintains.
Another supporter of Nikki Haley, businessman Juan Castaña, who lives in Florida and has donated to the candidate's campaign, told Voz Media that he knows that his candidate is not going to win the Republican nomination, but, according to him, it is worth making the effort.
"We cannot not fight. It is irresponsible to leave the way for Trump if we oppose him. And I want to clarify something: I voted for him in 2016 and I have supported him, but I have not liked his attitude lately. This country needs more unity, not more division," Castaña said.
"It is not possible that if you don't like Trump, then they call you a traitor. And look at the last elections: it's not that Trump's candidates are doing better," Castaña added.
In a report published in The Wall Street Journal on why Haley remains in the race, correspondent Molly Ball writes that "Haley has a vocal cheering section in the GOP’s Never Trump faction, which includes a swath of highly credentialed former officeholders who say they no longer recognize their party."
Maureen Hosey, a 59-year-old accountant from Brewster, N.Y., is a supporter of Nikki Haley. When interviewed by Ball for The Wall Street Journal, Hosey said, "I’m a lifelong Republican. She is saying the things I remember Republican politicians saying."
Brian Considine, a 66-year-old businessman and another lifelong Republican, told The Wall Street Journal that Haley "the first politician" he has ever donated to.
"People say she has no endgame or her only point is to destroy Trump. I think that’s a good thing," Considine told WSJ.
Getting ready for the day after
In a column for Commentary, writer and former official from the Reagan and Bush Sr. presidencies, John Podhoretz, developed his own thesis as to why Nikki Haley insists on pushing for the nomination.
Unless Trump is struck by lightning, Podhoretz says hyperbolically, there is no chance that Haley will be the Republican Party nominee. So, he asks, "What is she doing?"
"Here's my theory. Haley is running in case Trump loses. She will have been the last Republican standing, and since Iowa she has honed her message to a fine point, which is this: Trump is not a winner," explains Podhoretz.
According to Podhoretz, Haley thinks that Trump is not a politician who knows how to win. Specifically, he says, the former president won in 2016 without obtaining a popular majority. Then, due to errors and mismanagement, he lost the presidency in 2020.
"Then he all but told Georgians to stay home for the two Senate runoffs in January 2021, the GOP vote cratered by more than 100,000, and Democrats took both seats and control of the upper chamber. And then, in 2022, the drooling-lunatic candidates he favored helped Democrats avoid the colossal midterm defeat in the House everyone expected—and allowed them to retain the Senate."
That is, according to Podhoretz, Haley's reading. He believes that Haley is preparing for the moment when, after another eventual defeat, the majority of Republicans—which it was not in South Carolina, when this number was just four out of 10—decide to abandon Donald Trump and his political project.
If that happens, "The person who can say 'I told you so' in that case, and simultaneously offer a new path to the future, will be Nikki Haley," he writes.
Finally, Podhoretz concludes with his theory: "Maybe she can’t be the nominee in 2028. Maybe the GOP base will decide she’s just a raven-headed Liz Cheney and demonize her and drive her out. Could happen. But if Trump is not president on January 20, 2025, the party will be in pieces and Haley will be the most famous Republican to have delivered the warning."
When asked about Nikki Haley's campaign, columnist Ed Tarnowski, whose writing has appeared in The National Review and The Washington Examiner, told Voz Media that "Running against a former president in a primary was always going to be an uphill battle, but people on the right challenging Donald Trump’s vendetta politics and his increasing drift toward populism is imperative for America and the Republican Party."
"As the world becomes more dangerous, Trump is becoming more isolationist, and America’s adversaries are salivating at the building inward-facing sentiment in our politics. As Joe Biden’s popularity sinks to record lows, Trump instead wants to talk about his disproven 2020 election conspiracy theories and punish Republicans who do not indulge them. In contrast, Haley offers a steady, Reaganite vision," Tarnowski explained.
In some ways, Tarnowski's hypothesis coincides with that of Podhoretz: "If Trump is nominated this year, as it has since 2018, I suspect the GOP will experience devastating electoral losses up and down the ballot. What rises from the ashes of this loss must be something better, or the left will dominate our politics."
"Haley is running to remind American conservatives of who we are so that doesn't happen. For America’s sake, I hope we remember," Tarnowski told Voz Media.
