Even if Haley fights on, GOP race is over — unless Trump helps her by doing this | Opinion
Nikki Haley didn’t get the upset she wanted Tuesday in New Hampshire.
If anything, she barely did well enough to justify staying in the Republican presidential race against Donald Trump. And the road ahead doesn’t look promising. The next major contest is in her native South Carolina, but she lags Trump badly there. Beyond that, there’s no reason to think she’ll break through even when more and bigger states (including Texas) start to vote.
The party is unifying behind Trump. Texas Sen. John Cornyn said almost immediately after the polls closed in New Hampshire that he has “seen enough” and would back Trump.
Little of the race is in Haley’s control. And it’s a shame, because she finally gave a full-throated case against Trump on Tuesday night — it was just far too late.
She warned of his penchant for dragging Republicans to losses. She noted that the country and the world, already haywire under Biden, can little afford Trump’s particular brand of chaos. She hit him on his age and political vulnerability.
“The worst kept secret in American politics is how badly the Democrats want to run against Donald Trump,” Haley correctly noted. “They know Trump is the only Republican in the country who Joe Biden can defeat. You can’t fix the mess if you don’t win an election.”
Where was all this six months ago, or even six weeks? It might not have made a difference, but it sure would be nice to have seen.
Despite all this, one thing can keep Haley’s candidacy alive the next few weeks: Trump.
When he should have been crowing about his victory, talking of unity and looking to the future, Trump couldn’t resist taking potshots at Haley on Tuesday night. He slapped around popular New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu for daring to back Haley. And then he brought up also-ran Vivek Ramaswamy, as if to remind everyone that no matter what you think of Trump, there was always that one smarmy kid in class who everyone agreed was the worst.
If Trump can’t check his instincts to put Haley on full blast for a month or so, he’ll give her an opening to remind even many Republican voters what they don’t like about him. If he’s misogynistic or racist, it’ll help her. If he spends time whining about procedure — as he did Tuesday, blasting New Hampshire for letting independents vote in the primary, a feature that no doubt launched him to victory in 2016 — he’ll remind voters that there’s always drama with this guy.
And most of all, if he shows his age, as he did recently in confusing Haley for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he just might create enough doubt among Republican voters about whether he can truly beat Biden.
None of this is likely to add up to a Haley win, or even come close. But then, the country is barreling toward two 80-year-olds disliked by majorities of Americans engaging in an exhausting 10-month slap fight while the world burns around them. If that doesn’t open the door to the unlikely, what will?
This story was originally published January 24, 2024 at 5:28 AM.
