JUSTIN SULLIVAN/Getty Images via AFP
Nikki Haley is campaigning on February 21 in South Carolina, the state she has led for several years.
UNITED STATES – “I refuse to give up. » While she statistically has (almost) no chance of winning the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election against Donald Trump, Nikki Haley reiterated her intention to stay in the race at a meeting with her supporters on Tuesday, February 20 .
This stubbornness raises questions. According to the polls, she is well behind her rival for the South Carolina primary this Saturday, February 24th. The state's former governor between 2011 and 2017 planned to rely on her record to make the difference, but she remains more than 30 points behind the billionaire. According to a poll conducted February 15-18 and published by USA Today, she received only 35% of voting intentions, compared to 63% for her opponent.
FiveThirtyEight, poll aggregator
Donald Trump largely dominates Nikki Haley in the 2024 Republican presidential primary in South Carolina.
This dynamic mirrors previous primaries. While she had the wind in her sails at the start of the year, results in Iowa and New Hampshire were not as good as expected and she threw her weight behind the ex-president's dream of returning to the White House. Even more embarrassing, she attended the Nevada primary in early February, where Trump was absent (he was in the parallel caucus due to an electoral anomaly), and arrived… behind the mention of “none of these candidates.” .
Despite these failures, and even if South Carolina risks shutting them down a little more, Nikki Haley has no plans to stop. The candidate, who is positioning herself as a moderate Republican against the overconfident Donald Trump, says she wants to continue at least until Super Tuesday on March 5, the day when most states will vote simultaneously in the primaries.
Donald Trump's legal problems
“Ten days after South Carolina, 20 more states will vote. We are not in Russia! We don’t want someone to be there and get 99% of the vote. Why so much impatience? Why is everyone scared when they see me outside the race? ” she told the Associated Press.
In fact, there are several reasons for Nikki Haley's combativeness. First, it hopes to be a backup tire in the event of a conviction of Donald Trump, who is facing charges on several counts. Appeals are currently being considered to determine whether he can run or not. Even if it's not prevented, a severe verdict could change the minds of some voters who could fall back on Nikki Haley. That is the hope of the latter, who continues to insist that Donald Trump spends more time in court defending himself than on the ground campaigning.
The real estate mogul's legal troubles aren't the only reason for his persistence. A key point of election campaigning, especially in the United States, is having a lot of money. And she has, because she is surrounded by a whole host of donors ready to support her, including famous billionaire Charles Koch. It remains to be seen how long it will take given his election results.
Nikki Haley thinks about the future
There are at least two other explanations, one of which is his age. At 52, she still has her entire political career ahead of her and many more chances to run for president in 2028 or later. Even if she declares herself as a candidate again in 2040, at 70, she will still be younger than Donald Trump was when he was first elected in 2016, as Politico points out. The year 2024 should primarily serve to leave a mark for as long as possible.
If Donald Trump is finally elected as the Republican candidate, Nikki Haley may be counting on the latter's defeat in November to say to her voters: “I told you so.” Even as she repeats that her main opponent is Joe Biden, who is the will be the Democratic nominee, this revenge would put them in excellent momentum to reshape the Republican Party, currently under the control of Donald Trump.
Nikki Haley and her campaign team are refusing to reveal their post-Super Tuesday strategy at this time. It must be said that according to calculations, Donald Trump should secure his nomination by mid-March by winning enough states and thus delegates that will vote for him at the party convention in the summer. Then it will be impossible for the former UN ambassador to continue to defend her candidacy. Maybe she'll think about running as an independent candidate for the No Labels initiative, seeking an alternative to the Trump-Biden duel? She refuses to answer at this point.
See also on HuffPost:
You cannot view this content because:
- By subscribing, you have opted out of cookies related to third-party content. You will therefore not be able to play our videos, which require third-party cookies to function.
- You are using an ad blocker. We recommend you disable it to access our videos.
If neither of these two cases apply to you, contact us at [email protected].