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Good Night, Nikki
Although the raced was “called” about a minute after the polls closed in South Carolina by the networks and poll tracking entities, I have waited until nearly all the votes have been reported. It’s obvious that South Carolina Republicans want President Trump in the White House again. This is not a shock. The only mystery was whether Nikki friendly PACs who pitched Democrats to cross over if they didn’t bother to vote in the uncontested Democratic primary would succeed in padding her Republican support with Democrats. Have no idea how many did, but it certainly didn’t make the outcome close.
Nikki says she is going to press on. Uh, why? There is no super secret groundswell of support amongst Republicans that are going to assert themselves shortly. Nikki is wasting somebody’s money.
I bear her no ill will, but this is bordering on the psychotic. I know that most everyone who runs for President is megalomaniacal (or possibly suffering under a messianic delusion). So being abnormal is not a disqualifier. Being delusional is.
For your mental health and ours, Nikki, please just stop. Now.
Published in Election 2024
At this point, I have begun to suspect that her supporters love seeing her crushed. Over and over, again and again. In a purely misogynistic sort of way, I mean. And, at some point, the wags will be talking about how Trump has toured the country beating women. Not as bad as if he put the family dog on the car roof or something, but still.
Funny kind of “supporter”.
As long as she stays in, she gets lots of establishment money. So, corruption perhaps?
I’ll be helping run, as well as voting in, my local Idaho R presidential caucus next Saturday. We were wondering whether it would be a complete snoozer with only one candidate still officially in the race. Guess not! Should be more hectic but more fun.
I prefer they waste it now on her, rather than spend it in November on FJB or whoever actually runs then.
If she has the money, why not keep on running? There are a lot of possibilities.
She isn’t likely to win but the more she persists and prevails, the better she looks for 2028.
Trump could blow a gasket, get hospitalized, and withdraw from the race. If so, by virtue of still being in the race as a campaigner, she would likely get the nomination. The world is run by those who show up.
In order to peel off her votes for himself, Trump might propose unambiguous support for military aid for Ukraine and Israel, campaigning against the slowness and inadequacy of Biden’s support. Since it’s rather late to be doing that, Nikki could probably take some credit for pushing him in that direction. It would be annoying to Trump, but might serve her well in future years.
Team Trump is sounding rather desperate with all the namecalling and invective against Nikki for merely being in the race. Maybe he knows something to justify that lack of confidence in himself. Who wouldn’t want to position herself to take advantage of whatever is behind it?
Those are some I was able to come up with in a couple minutes of thinking about it. But if donors don’t see it that way, she’ll probably pause her campaign soon enough.
“Nevertheless, she persisted.”
Perhaps enough people believe that Trump’s campaign will be blown up – figuratively or literally – and that a distant second will be close enough…for government work.
Remember when John McCain was carrying his own bags to the plane in 2008? No one thought his efforts were justified, either. He went on to be the Republican candidate that year.
I don’t get why people think that competing — or aspiring to compete — is a bad thing. These are not coronations with rebels outside the court being put down for rebellion. These are contests, and the more contests you have in a democratic republic the better the candidate, and the better the politician.
The “supporters” are really pimps – they will use anyone who will publicly attack Trump. Sununu isn’t getting as much out of it as she is of course but he’s also useful for now. Christie, He of No Risible Means of Support, less and less but the same. Who knows her own motivation. It seems that money wouldn’t be enough. But.
I don’t think she helps any 2028 chances. Showing up is important but people like success. This isn’t success. She’s sounding thin and whiny and pointless – like Romney. She’s saying less and less of substance over time.
With two 75+ geezers in the race, a major medical event could occur at any time that would change the race. It would change the race even if it happens to Biden. I would have recommended even DeSantis stay in
Umm . . .no. She only gets the delegates already pledged to her. In the event of Trump disability the Trump delegates remain, but can vote for any candidate at the convention. Remember, all the primaries and caucuses do is select our representatives to the convention who actually vote for the nominee.
If Trump were unavailable at the convention it becomes an old-fashioned brokered convention where the delegates select the nominee based on either whom they are pledged to support or their own preferences. Except for those actually pledged to Nikki, few will choose her over DeSantis or Scott or even Sarah Huckabee (they don’t have to choose from announced or suspended candidates).
If Nikki’s strategy is to get the nomination based on being the last active candidate actually standing she is even . . . let’s be polite and say less intelligent . . . than I previously believed. She has no path to the nomination. Except maybe Biden makes her the Republican nominee by Presidential executive order.
She is not a Regean–the longer she stays in the more she annoys the base. By my scorecard she supports the Deep State and that makes her an enemy of America and Americans.
Thanks. The political parties don’t follow beauty pageant rules of succession.
Disagree. If Trump drops out, SC delegates will still get to vote at convention. Those delegates don’t go away. They will go to DeSantis. The longer she stays in the more she ruins her brand. Many here who supported her for governor are mad at her now. Other red states have no real attachment to Haley. Odd, isn’t it? The Haley counties are some of the blue ones but it was a Republican primary. Other blue ones went to Trump. That Haley blob in the center is Richland County, Clyburn’s peeps. Coastal ones are rich, white liberal ones. The blue I-95 corridor went for Trump.
Trump’s delegates still get to vote at convention.
This isn’t a typical campaign year.
DeSantis is still in – he just suspended. Trump delegates would go to him, not her..
Clearly this is an operation backed by neocons and Never Trumpers with the help of Uniparty Dems (all well overlapping in the Venn diagram) to confound Trump, and more importantly, use her as a mouthpiece through which they can spout for their agenda on the legacy media channels and further divide Republicans.
Whether she has convinced herself she stands a chance to ever win this (or another) election as a Republican isn’t relevant since this means either stupid or crazy… (but young!).
I do not understand how anyone with any political understanding can see a path to the Presidency for her. Let me spell it out for them:
Imagine something happens to Trump as some theorize. Okay… next step?
You haven’t gotten that far have you? It’s magic to y’all I suppose. She brings her (4 ?) delegates to the convention and argues she’s the gal. She’ll have no better standing than any other Republican who wishes to become the nominee. In fact, worse because she’s already been summarily rejected by voters.
If somehow, the NT forces do prevail and nominate her, how many MAGA Republicans will stay home or vote for RFK jr.?
I’m positive she would do very badly in the general without the votes of 1/3 to 1/2 of Trump supporters (fewer and fewer as we proceed) .
Getting another 10% from the suburban women demographic will not offset the many demographics she would lose. She will lose the support of the legacy media immediately just as McCain did in 2008 as soon as he was nominated. If nominated, whatever dirt they have on her will be released. They can make it up as they did with Romney, and there are some credible rumors that she cheated on her hubby when he was deployed. That could be devastating. We haven’t seen her tested. Trump is inoculated and fully demonized. Ironically, they can’t squeeze any more juice out of Trumps real and imagined negatives. BTW having a husband who is serving in the military is not a bona fide as a candidate. It’s almost meaningless.
After seeing way too much of her as a politician, her demeanor is off-putting. She’s not good. Hands and arms flying around – incoherently strange gestures – her facial expressions are odd and give me and others ‘the creeps’. If you watch her speak with the sound off (a very good exercise ) she looks like she’s scolding.
She speaks to her audiences as though they are schoolchildren, and thus she comes off as a teacher or principal ( or vice-principle who gives out detentions too often?).
Her references to her being ‘brown’ and being female is right out of the Democrat playbook, 20 years too late. This is the hallmark of the GOPe adopt your opponents tenets as a defense mechanism and trying to prove that you are not a racist or mysogynist to your political enemies. They don’t care Nikki. Democrats of all races are entirely disingenuous when asserting their racial and gender preferences and complaints. Any Republican who doesn’t recognize this by now is unfit for office just on the basis of political IQ alone.
Most damning to her credibility is her blatant posturing and gaslighting. We are watching her, essentially, lie to us with a smile. We know she’s lying, she knows she’s lying. Her supporters are all supposed to pretend. This does not inspire confidence. This is why 95% of politicians decide to drop-out rather than continue with the naked pretense when it’s obvious they can’t win. Otherwise we’d be seeing a lot more of them employ this tactic of pretending to be victorious when they’ve been demolished. They just would look like fools and be seen as openly trying to fool voters into believing a falsehood. And they lose their funding because donors recognize that he or she has no chance to win. Except in this case. Why? (go back to the top for the first clues)
I have gone from seeing her as a decent Governor of SC to absolutely loathing her. The more I see her and read about her past positions the more despicable she looks. (And I do bear her and her backers ill will.)
The money is not being wasted. They are splitting Republicans – or making the existing divide more obvious – and using Nikki to advance their propaganda in the media. They are paying for, and getting, PR points and chaos. Money well spent, and Nikki is willing to pretend and gaslight.
Thank you. Trump is being drained of his money by corrupt legal system Democrats. The longer she stays in, more money that we donate is spent in the primary instead of the general. I see her refusal to suspend her campaign as a direct attack on my wallet. She is being funded by rich Democrats as a tool to weaken Trump. Her campaign is encouraging Democrats to cross over and vote for her, nullifying the choice of many Republicans. We now see her as a backstabber.
As though the huge number of Trump supporters don’t exist.
I guess, like Biden you mean? Inspiring!
Why does Trump need votes for himself? He has to win by 95% now for it to be clear? She’s getting demolished. Came in a distant third in one State, has yet to win a State and lost her home State. The funding of the Ukraine war ‘effort’ is quite unpopular. With people. Voters. This is one reason why Nikki can’t get traction. Trump would lose other votes, and a huge net negative, if he were to propose such a thing.
She has no future. Again you write as though Trump supporters don’t exist. I suppose that’s a bit of wishful thinking on your part and it could be the thread that holds the Haley coalition together. Y’all just wish and hope things into existence. Please maybe Nikki can just declare Zelinski the winner and everyone can just go home and lives would be saved!
Occam’s Razor says that it’s just a normal reaction to blatant backstabbing, lying and gaslighting coming from her mouth and from her campaign. Possibly? These are the same demons behind her as behind all the other nefarious and underhanded actions against the MAGA movement and Trump himself. They should pretend that she’s not a complete fraud? I think not.
I’m interested to see how far they can take this charade and the reaction to it. But I think her donors are funding her out of an entirely different motivation than thinking she has a chance to win anything. As long as she creates chaos and advances their narrative on Face the Nation it’s money well spent for them.
Haley beats Biden in yesterday’s Marquette poll by 16 points. This would have enormous ramifications down ticket. Trump has no chance of winning the general election. It would be criminal not to nominate her. She should claw and scratch for any delegate she can win, in the event that Mr Trump has a health problem and has to drop out.
The 2024 Republican obsession with Mr Trump is the greatest strategic error in American political history.
I’m sure she asked her campaign consultants “Should I keep paying you money?” and they said “Yes!”
I would recommend those who are interested to look at the detail county map pictured at the top of the post from this website. It is fascinating that Richland and Lexington counties are virtual mirror images: Richland gave Haley 57.5 % and Trump 41.4% of a total of 32,857 votes, while Lexington gave Trump 58.1% and Haley 41.2% of a total of 47,200 votes. From what I can tell on the map, the City of Columbia limits fall fully within Richland County except for a little bit that the City seems to annexed as part of a shopping development northwest of downtown. USC main campus (and presumably student housing) is firmly within the City limits.
Scanning around the other county races, it just wasn’t close in any red county, just as it wasn’t close in any Haley county.
I think at this point it is “making the existing divide more obvious”. I don’t see anyone at this point going from Trump to anyone else. I do read of some Biden supporters coming to Trump. Probably the Nikki voters are wholly immobile at this point.
I haven’t cared for Nikki Haley since she endorsed Marco Rubio in 2016 and went on about how they looked like a Benniton ad (again, with the race & sex).
I’d caution/remind the Trump faithful though to consider what her showing means. Yes, she got curb-stomped but she also garnered nearly 40% of primary voters. What percentage were Democrats? Don’t know.
Some may look at that as a yuge victory, may be advisable to look at that in terms of the % that he didn’t get and appealing to them to minimize those defections and attract what you can to your effort.
No chance?
You cited one single poll which also has Trump over Biden.
In the polling averages he’s been leading since October.
Trump is going to be the nominee. You can stew in your anger about it and stay home, or you can help us beat the Democrats.
Which is more important to you?
We’ve been over this before. More than half the electorate dislikes Mr Trump. He has lost to Mr Biden once already. There has been no correction of the circumstances that led to the theft of 2020, in which I believe Mr Trump legitimately prevailed. Everything he touched in 2022 turned to dust; without Mr Trump’s blessings we would have US Senators in AZ, GA (2!) and PA, where Trump acolytes took the places of serious politicians, and a few governors too. Believing those polls which show him ahead is a recipe for disaster and will turn on us as soon as he gets a couple of felony convictions.
The one single poll I quoted had Trump ahead by 4 and Haley by 16. Let’s get real. A 16 point lead, even if corrupted down to 8 or 10, would bring the House, Senate, governors’ mansions and state legislatures.
Yes we have, and it looks like Trump haters will just stay home, and if Biden “wins” again, they’ll blame the Trump voters, instead of the people who stayed home and sulked.
You know how many times in the last 40 years my primary choice actually got the nomination: ZERO! So I understand the frustration. But once the nomination was made, I joined my fellow conservatives and did my duty to defeat the demonic Democrats.
There is no room for this persistent petulance. The country is being systematically destroyed. Sitting this one out is a luxury we can’t afford.
Respectfully, that is a “head to head” question. So FJB votes go to Haley instead of Biden. But when you talk to the real FJB voters they all say “Trump” even those that supported Biden in 2020.
I see what you did there. Either you are expressing your own judgment that Trump is a criminal or trying to prime others to believe that he is. Please stop that.
No, the biggest strategic error was failing in 2020 to ensure that the country got and knew the reported voting results were legitimate; too many self-interests were served by not doing that. I won’t rehash that here, but there are many fine analyses on Ricochet that document the problems and the failure of the GOP establishment to care enough to stop it beforehand or investigate it when it would have made a difference. “Because Trump” is the plaint of so many as they fall from their perches in the esteem of their fellow Americans.