Nikki Haley must have found the South Carolina Republican primary bruising. Haley is experienced and pragmatic, and the numbers that have consistently emerged from the GOP race are unambiguous, but she is only human. To lose 60/40 to Donald Trump in her home state — where she was born, educated and married, and of which she was governor for six years — was a stinging setback.
The truth is that Trump has looked like the most likely GOP nominee since he announced his intention to run in November 2022. Nothing has stopped him electorally. He has won the Republican contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada as well as South Carolina and Michigan, and currently has 244 delegates for the convention in July. Haley, now the only other active candidate, has 24 delegates behind her, and is showing no signs of eating into Trump’s enormous lead.
Haley came out of her defeat in South Carolina swinging. Emphasizing that she is “a woman of my word,” she argued that many millions of voters had yet to participate in the primary process. “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.” Financially, she is not done yet. January was her best fund-raising month yet, and by attracting $11.5 million she outstripped Trump.
The outcome is not in serious doubt, however. Americans for Prosperity Action, the Super PAC channelling money from the Koch family, announced that it had to “take stock” of its priorities and was suspending further funding for Haley’s campaign.
Is Haley the only person who can’t see the inevitable? Does she think there will be some miraculous change in opinion among Republican voters and they will suddenly lose their taste for former president and turn to her instead? Or is she a prisoner of some kind of personal pride?
Bluntly, why is she still running?
Of course there must be an element of pride. Trump is a crude, mendacious braggart with dangerously simplistic ideas about the world, and it can’t be easy for any politician to admit defeat to him. Haley must have in her mind, though, the possibility, however remote, that Trump’s candidacy implodes. With so many legal and financial hurdles, something might happen, and if the GOP needs to replace its standard-bearer later this year, she will want to be the natural choice to avert a crisis.
But this is more about 2028 than 2024. If Trump retakes the White House, he will be in the unusual position of being limited to a single term, thanks to the 22nd Amendment, effectively starting the race to succeed him on day one. Trump is unlikely to pick a running mate with much independent heft — any vice president is likely to be a continuity candidate. The current favorite is Sen. Tim Scott, though delegates at the recent CPAC jamboree leaned towards Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
The next presidential term will end on Nikki Haley’s 56th birthday. In the current climate, with November likely to be a head-to-head between two presidents with a combined age of 160, time is on her side. It is not far-fetched, then, to see this campaign as an extended preparation for the next nomination race.
Haley has proved an effective fundraiser, drumming up well over $40 million in 2023, and has leveraged donors from the conservative Koch family to Democrat-leaning figures like LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman. The networks she has created and cultivated will be a useful foundation for any further campaigns.
And while Trump has avoided the GOP debates, Haley has generally proved a punchy contender, capable of projecting seriousness of purpose as well as jabbing back at her opponents. When Ramaswamy tried to dismiss her as “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels,” she fired back witheringly: “I wear heels and they’re not for a fashion statement: They’re for ammunition.”
She has also given conservatives who cannot accept Trump at any price a way to stay honest to their consciences. Even if she loses, backing her is no dishonor. The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldberg recently articulated this by quoting Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.”
The Republican Party faces existential questions. Is it now wholly the personality cult of Donald Trump, a pure MAGA ideological platform? What happens if President Biden defies current polling and wins reelection? What is the GOP’s Plan B?
Determination, fluency and some measure of political skill have made Nikki Haley the party’s clear Plan B. She cannot beat Trump, and the road may well end for now after Super Tuesday. What she has done, however, is make herself the dominant figure of non-Trump Republicanism. That status may one day be valuable. Her challenge is to gauge how she manages temporary defeat and stays relevant for four more years. Haley ’28 is the next part of the plan.
Eliot Wilson is a freelance writer on politics and international affairs. He was senior official in the U.K. House of Commons from 2005 to 2016, including serving as a clerk of the Defence Committee and secretary of the U.K. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.