Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said before South Carolina voted that she was staying in the race. Now she has a number to explain why: to fight for the 40%.
With 99% of the returns in, Haley is sitting at 39.5% to former President Donald Trump’s 59.8%.
“I’m an accountant. I know 40% is not 50%,” Haley said in her remarks Saturday night. “But I also know 40% is not some tiny group. There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative.”
Thus Haley’s argument is that there is a 40% slice of the Republican primary electorate that deserves representation, at least into March. Only four states have voted so far, and just a fraction of the delegates needed to secure the nomination have been awarded.
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“In the next ten days, another 21 states and territories will speak,” Haley continued. “They have the right to a real choice, not a Soviet-style election with only one candidate. And I have a duty to give them that choice.”
Ten days is a relatively short period of time in what will be a long election year. Haley will have the money to continue. And she has been good at managing expectations.
There is also some truth to her argument: The party is not totally unified, and Trump is not a unifying figure by temperament or inclination. The former president’s legal dramas and personal vendettas detract from his campaign message, at least to swing voters less persuaded that he’s being persecuted than most Republicans are. Trump, by his nature, makes it more difficult to frame the election as a referendum on President Joe Biden instead of a binary choice between two broadly unpopular candidates.
Republicans would be favored in the former. The latter scenario is more of a jump ball, as the polls currently show. And that’s assuming Trump isn’t convicted of anything by Election Day.
But there are important caveats here. The South Carolina exit polls showed Trump won 72% of self-identified Republicans, who were two-thirds of the primary electorate, to Haley’s 28%. He won 74% of white evangelicals and 85% of very conservative voters.
As was the case in New Hampshire, Haley needed significant crossover votes to approach the 40% threshold. Maybe those voters still illustrate Trump’s general election, though they may also reflect boredom with the absence of even a semi-competitive Democratic primary. But it is a bit different than 40% of Republicans wanting another candidate.
Right now Haley’s campaign looks like a cross between Pat Buchanan’s in 1992 and John McCain’s in 2000. Like Buchanan, Haley is doing well enough to highlight discontent with the front-runner but not well enough to win anywhere. Like McCain, much of her support is coming from independents and, to a lesser extent, Democrats.
Buchanan’s showing did foreshadow George H.W. Bush’s weakness as he unsuccessfully sought a second term. McCain’s popularity with independents suggested that maybe he could have avoided the hanging chads that plagued George W. Bush and delayed the resolution of the general election.
But both campaigns were ultimately doomed by insufficient support from Republicans.
As the race heads into Super Tuesday, Haley will need to compete in multiple states and media markets at once. The option of focusing on just Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina will be gone, though she could conceivably pick a blue state with an open primary and concentrate her resources on trying to get a win there.
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It is possible that Trump will start running up bigger margins of victory than the approximately 60-40 split he notched in Haley’s home state. Michigan votes on Tuesday.
Until then, Haley is the last Trump opponent standing.
