Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor, has reached a decision point after losing the New Hampshire Republican primary last January. She could follow the path of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential nominee who easily succumbed to the party's eventual nominee in 2020. Or she could follow the path of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential nominee who ran against him. The party's nominee for several months in 2016, bruising her, depleting her resources and fatefully damaging her standing with the party's base. Which one will Hailey choose?
It resonated in New Hampshire, where it delivered a complex message in a race in which Donald Trump and Trumpism are the most important issue. Her recent sharp attacks on Trump, and her pledge to stay in the race even after her 20-point defeat to Trump in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, suggest she has achieved greater clarity. For now, she's opted to take the less welcoming route — more of a '16' Bernie rather than a '20'.
This could be very bad news for Trump.
In 2020, Joe Biden won about 87% of Sanders' supporters in November, according to estimates by Vanderbilt University political scientist John Sides and two of his colleagues. By contrast, in 2016, only about 79% of Sanders supporters voted for Hillary Clinton in the general election. Worse still, Sanders received a much larger share of the vote in 2016 — more than 4 in 10 — than he did in 2020. So Clinton's deficit in November was even more significant.
“We found in 2016 that Sanders supporters had a less favorable view of Clinton as the campaign went on,” Sides told me.
Every race Trump enters is unique. (White nationalist demagogues, under many federal and state indictments, deal strictly with standard political paradigms.) But it's not hard to imagine that a miniature version of Bernie Mintum might take root in the GOP presidential race in 2024. Haley gives anti-Trump Republicans, many of them women, a place to go. The question is whether it will also give enough of them a place to stay — even after Trump becomes the party's official nominee.
“She's not going to win the nomination. But she's going to get more than 20% in most of the primaries she's in,” said Mike Madrid, a former political director for the California Republican Party and an anti-Trump activist. And if a large minority of GOP voters refuse to support Trump in the election, Overall, his path to victory would be impossible. “He has a very difficult ceiling,” Madrid said. “If Healy could drop that ceiling three or four points down, it would be devastating.”
Is this Haley's goal? It's hard to say. Haley avoids the “Never Trump” label and presents herself only as a truth teller with “no fear of Trump's retaliation” and no desire to “kiss the ring.” However, she has found her own way, sandwiched between the camps of mutual hatred of MAGA and Never Trump. She is joined there by a steady minority of primary voters, a community of exiles that translates into political influence that no Trump supplicant could muster. It is still possible that Haley will support Trump. But she will gain nothing and lose a lot if she surrenders.
“She may be the first Republican politician in this era to realize that with Trump in this arena, she has no future,” Madrid said. “If Trump wins, the next candidate will be either Trump himself or his son or daughter. He is putting his daughter-in-law in charge of the Republican National Committee.”
The longer Haley remains in power, the more she will become a rallying point for Republicans who do not want to be ruled by a decadent cult. The more Republicans become accustomed to opposing Trump, the more precarious his situation becomes. A wave of Democratic voters may be needed to sink Trump. But only a few Republicans, withholding their support, will be able to achieve a similar result.
Trump has become more authoritarian and vindictive, but he has not crushed resistance — even within the Republican Party. Donors ignored his threats and continued to fund Haley with no real hope of victory. In Washington recently, as Haley was losing the primary in her home state, pro-Democracy conservatives gathered for a Principles First summit, which included a group of prominent figures who have never been Trump. Last year, the conference attracted about 400 participants. More than 700 people have registered this year. Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney has given pro-Democracy conservatives a backbone. Now Haley gives them an electoral vote.
In the face of Haley's intransigence, a Trump campaign official told Semaphore's David Weigel that MAGA's march to victory would not be diverted by Haley's “delusion.” It would be delusional indeed for Haley to believe she can win the Republican nomination for president. But if the goal is to destroy Donald Trump, and repel the political pathologies he embodies, Haley appears to be on the right track.
Frances Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. @fdwilkinson
