Nikki Haley still won't stop
Nikki Haley lost badly in Iowa and New Hampshire. In Nevada, she ran unopposed in an irrelevant primary on Tuesday, finishing behind “None of These Candidates.” But she's still trying to expand voters' imaginations about what's possible, both for her prospects in the 2024 Republican presidential election and for the nation.
She has money in the bank, a strategy to expand the Republican base and a new unapologetic hostility toward former President Donald Trump.
Still, she faces tough electoral math and a Republican base that seems determined to nominate Trump for a third time.
Mike Noble, a pollster who works in Arizona and Nevada, noted that about seven in 10 Republicans nationally say they don't believe Trump actually lost in 2020.
To those voters, Trump is “a two-time winner who is now going for a three-time winner,” Noble said. “You're actually waiting for a Hail Mary.”
To pull off an unlikely victory, Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, must win the support of 1,215 Republican delegates — a number that currently stands at 33 for Trump and 17 for Haley.
She wants to build her total in 13 Republican Party primary states, which are not limited to registered Republicans, including South Carolina, her home base. But that strategy backfired in New Hampshire, and Trump maintains a tight grip on the Republican base across the country, including in the delegate-rich states of California, Florida and Texas. Trump's allies have also been working behind the scenes to distort the primaries and delegate rules in his favor.
Nevada, with its confusing dueling primary and caucus this week, offered something of a preview. Before a single vote was cast, Nevada Republicans had their main bone of contention when they decided that only the results of Thursday's caucus would determine the allocation of the state's 26 delegates, a move intended to benefit Trump to come.
His supporters in Nevada, including the governor, had urged “None of these candidates” as a protest vote against Haley on the first ballot. In a final twist, Haley will technically win the contest — state election law says that “only votes cast for named candidates will be counted” — but the confusing result will deny her even a symbolic victory.
Haley told Fox Business on Wednesday that her campaign “always knew Nevada was a scam.” “Trump had it rigged from the very beginning,” she added.
In a social media post, Haley stepped out about her own celebration, painting the tumultuous day in Nevada and on Capitol Hill not as bad for her, but for Republicans. (The party itself was embarrassed as the House of Representatives failed to impeach the secretary of Homeland Security, lost a vote to expedite aid to Israel and cheered the demise of a border deal that Republicans had requested.)
“Republicans keep doing the same thing and achieving the same result: chaos. That is the definition of insanity,” she wrote.
Survive until Super Tuesday
Haley and her allies insist she has the resources and momentum to go at least the distance until Super Tuesday on March 5, the biggest day of the primary season. Her campaign was a success $16.5 million in Januaryits largest monthly fundraiser to date.
At recent campaign events in South Carolina, Haley showed up with a fresh combative approach and a new walkout song: “I Love Rock 'n' Roll,” performed by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. She has aggressively attacked the former president for his mental acuity, his refusal to debate and his legal troubles as he fights 91 felony charges.
“He spent $50 million in campaign donations on legal fees,” she said this week in Spartanburg, S.C. “And he said with his own mouth that he will spend more time in court than he will spend campaigning.”
These legal ordeals may provide one of Haley's only plausible routes to victory, because the simple voter math is daunting. Forty-eight states have yet to hold their caucuses or primaries. Some will award state delegates proportionately. But the majority will stage a total or partial winner-take-all contest, which usually favors the frontrunner.
Republicans in California, where Haley is expected at a rally in Los Angeles tonight, have adopted a set of rules that will give all 169 delegates to the candidate who gets 50 percent of the vote statewide — a threshold that only Trump has met in polls .
Haley is heavily courting independents, college-educated and new Republican voters.
But Ruth Igielnik, polling editor at The Times, points to a CNN poll from last week that showed Haley's weakness among her own base: She received support from just 29 percent of nationally educated Republicans. Trump had 55 percent of the same demographic.
Matt Grossmann, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University, was also dubious. “They identified the most plausible of the unlikely paths,” he said of the Haley team.
And yet Haley's staunchest supporters insist she can keep it going. They argue that Trump could still stumble, especially if he faces a federal trial on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The trial was expected to begin on March 4, a day before Super Tuesday. It has since been postponed indefinitely.
Republican strategists now see Haley's bid as a principled but futile stand against Mr. Trump, or as wish-fulfillment for her donors or as a springboard for a future campaign. Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist and former aide to Mitt Romney who has long known Haley, said Trump's legal troubles had only made him stronger.
“There is no desire among the Republican electorate to go in a different direction,” he said. “Nikki Haley's candidacy is more of a statement candidacy.”
Nikki Haley and her allies are betting that voters in South Carolina — a state where she was born, raised and led as governor — will remember her high approval ratings and performance there. She is still behind Donald Trump by double digits. In this video, Jazmine Ulloa explains what's at stake for Haley's presidential run.
Reporter updates
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a new poll from the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows that 39 percent of Americans – including 74 percent of Republicans – say it would be a good idea if Donald Trump “doesn't become a dictator until the first day of his second term.” — Michael Bender
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More live updates here.