Nikki Haley is making good on her promise to support the Republican candidate

Nikki Haley suggested Sunday that she may no longer feel bound by the promise she made to participate in last year’s Republican primary to support the party’s eventual nominee — raising the possibility that she could replace the former president Donald J. Trump if he wins the nomination, as it is increasingly likely he will.

At the same time, she reiterated her previous claims that President Biden was a worse option than Mr. Trump, saying she did not want to engage in “what ifs” or “hypotheticals” that assumed she would lose the primaries. At no point did she rule out supporting Trump, even though she said he allowed “lawlessness” on January 6 and that she did not know whether he would follow the Constitution as president.

The discussion on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” began when the host, Kristen Welker, asked whether Ms. Haley had taken the prospect of supporting Mr. Trump “off the table.”

Ms. Haley hedged, saying, “It’s not something I think about,” adding, “When you’re talking about an endorsement, you’re talking about a loss. I don’t think about it that way.”

After a lengthy back-and-forth, she described the Republican National Committee pledge she signed last year and said, referring to Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Lara Trump, who is married to his son Eric, as co-chair of the party : Replacing outgoing chair, Ronna McDaniel: “The RNC is not the same RNC now. Now it’s Trump’s daughter-in-law.”

“I think I’ll decide what decision I want to make,” she added. “But that’s not something I think about. And I think as you think about that, I look at the fact that we had thousands of people in Virginia, we’re going to go to North Carolina, we’re going to go on to Vermont and Maine and so these states to show people that there is a way forward.”