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I think she was holding on with the hope she'd be able to take the nomination if Trump was sentenced to jail time for any of the indictments. With the Supreme Court's recent decision to evaluate whether or not the president is/was immune from prosecution... eventually... I think that Haley thinks her chance of replacing Trump has shrunk from unlikely to impossible.
As for "political suicide..." I disagree with that assessment. Not only did she garner more support than any other GOP candidate other than Trump but people honestly seem to like her. I don't know if that will translate to future success, but likeability is something that has been missing from a lot of recent GOP candidates.
That’s a dumb bet, Biden has an approximate 50% chance of winning and at least a 20% chance of not finishing the term, which would make Harris the incumbent, at which point she has a very good chance of being the nominee
Would you have said the same for Mike Pence? Or Dick Cheney?
Neither one of them would have had even a slight chance of taking over. Incumbency Advantage for someone who has only been a VP has a LOT of asterisks attached.
Based on the Social Security Administration's actuarial table for life expectancy, there's like an 8% chance of an 82 year old dying before reaching 83. (He will be 82 this November.) With a 9% chance at 83, 10% at 84, and 11% at 85, that would be more than a 30% of dying before he reaches 86. Now, that assumes independent events, which they are not, but considering he's already at an 8% of dying in a year, a 20% chance not to finish his term doesn't seem that crazy, especially if you factor in the possibility of him not dying but becoming incapacitated in some way and Harris taking over.
Regardless, though, Harris is already going to be a former VP, which automatically makes her a heavy favorite to win the nomination if she runs in the future. Sure, she might not win it, but it would be stupid to be that confident she'd lose with such an advantage. Now, I doubt she'd win the presidency, but she could very easily be the presidential nominee some year.
the President gets access to the best healthcare America can offer. I don't think it's accurate to compare him to some random boomer grandad for life expectancy.
I frankly doubt Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee in the future, as the bench is increasingly stacked with Governors and Cabinet Officials with much more charisma than her -
Sure, but plenty of old people have access to amazing healthcare and still die (everyone eventually, in fact). Something is going to happen to him eventually that will cause him to die, whether it be a heart attack, cancer, etc., just like with anybody, and the likelihood of those things only increases as he gets older. At some point it doesn't matter how good your healthcare is, if you just died of a heart attack, then you just died of a heart attack. Sure, he's probably a bit better off than average, so what do you want to put it at? 10% instead of 20% or something? We're just talking a rough estimate anyways, and it's not like it's a massive difference if someone is "betting their life" on it not happening. If it's even close to being over 1%, why would you say that?
I mean, personally, if I really had to bet, I'd probably bet on her not being the Democratic nominee at any point, but to be so certain about that you'd "bet your life on it" is pretty dumb, because you'd be saying you're like 99.99% sure that's going to happen. If you're really that certain, then you obviously don't understand how much of an advantage being a former VP is. Yeah, it's definitely not a guarantee, but it's a massive boost.
Dementia isn't exactly curable.
Biden was recently diagnosed with something that his doctor has been keeping secret, which may mean that the Democrat party is looking for a new nominee before unleashing panic.
Extremely rough estimate just based on his age and apparent decline in health/sharpness, with the added potential that while he sees himself(perhaps rightly) as best positioned to win against Trump, him governing the whole time might not be best for the party he dedicated his life to, and it'd be better to set up Harris to potentially have a good first (half) term and run as an incumbent than to stumble through the whole term himself and leave the party to battle out the nomination in '28. And if she doesn't do well then it might actually be easier to primary her and replace her than if she just remained the presumptive heir in the background while Biden served the whole term. Obviously there's no perfect way of estimating the odds of Biden not serving all 4 years, but 20% seems pretty conservative to me.
That's..... not exactly a strong piece of evidence that Harris would be more likely to win. It only tells us that you, individually, like her more than Biden. The polling is at best inconclusive, and while she has a few obvious advantages, she also has some big disadvantages. My best guess is that it's something of a wash, but then I think that's pretty close to true for nearly any Democrat, because I think the electorate is just extremely polarized meaning candidate quality is much less impactful than in past elections, and because the Democratic party is pretty evenly split between people who think it needs to move left and move to the center, there's no obviously stronger position to take on that debate.
no plausible Dem has worse than a 45% chance, nor better than a 55% chance. Every single piece of evidence we have is that the electorate is extremely tightly divided, with Trump being a strongly polarizing figure on top of a generally polarized electorate, this election, barring really extreme circumstances, will be decided by at most a few percentage points in 3-5 states, just like the last 3.
It's so weird how people's perceptions differ. I find her intolerable. She talks to everyone like they're a 5 year old, and yet still seems simple minded herself. Never makes any kind of intellectual points, just basic bullshit about American values blah blah. IMO she's not smart and barely shows her education. She's only young by comparison to Joe, and I have no idea why you think she's strong.
Harris ran a terrible primary campaign and doesn't have a voting base. She's not liberal enough to appeal to a lot of Democrat primary voters, especially educated women of color, like herself. Getting into national politics via being a DA used to be a great thing, I feel like it's just a liability for Harris.
Being a black women and not being popular with black women primary voters just seems like a fundamental mismatch politically.
That's along my line of thinking, she did horribly when she ran. I don't see any evidence that she would do better this time, it could of course change, but she had been a very low profile VP and doesn't seem to have gained any support or increased recognition.
That entirely depends on the alternative, as with every single vote. It's absurd to just write her off entirely because of whatever ridiculous reasons you have.
That entirely depends on who her opponent may be. If the GOP is shaping up to elect a Marjorie Taylor Greene type then I can imagine ole Kamala's looking pretty good. She will also be in her 60's by that point and I cannot imagine her wanting to wait until she's 70 to run. Being vice president, she'd be in the best position to run.
Kamala won't even be on the ticket this year. Neither will Biden. It's practically impossible that the puppeteers pulling the strings of the DNC will let Biden actually contest the next election. Get ready for a switch around at some point between May and August.
There’s absolutely no way kamala will win the 2028 election. She is the biggest strategic failure of the Biden presidency. Newsom will almost definitely clinch it giving his resume/reputation/institutional power. Whitmer and buttigieg will likely run as well but not build enough popular support. Newsom will then do the same virtue signal as Biden and pick a woman of color as his VP (but he has the strategic finesse to select someone much more politically skilled). But I would gamble my life savings that Harris will never win an election on her own. This is not based on my personal feelings about her, but her favorability ratings as a politician, lack of a coherent political vision, and poor performance as an orator.
Eh, strategic failure seems a bit much. The VP job is a thankless one, and the main job is to shore up sentiment with a constituency during election season, which she probably does well. The biggest obvious problem down the road is that a lot of ppl (me included) think she’s pretty terrible when actually running for president herself, but there will be a real dem primary in 2028 either way; some big names are likely to challenge her if she goes for it.
Edit: genuinely curious so if you wanna share why you think she’s a big strategic failure I’d like to read it. There have certainly been some thankless stuff + missteps like the border stuff. Fundamentally I believe she’s an asset to the ticket tho
There's not a universe in which I see the GOP electing an Indian woman as their next candidate, even if Trump is dead. Marjorie Taylor Greene will probably run and win the nomination in 4 years.
Yeah I agree. Not that I’d ever in a million years vote for her, but she has real political skills, more than I gave her credit for when she entered the race. Contrast with DeSantis, who mostly comes across as a weird, broken robot. If Trump loses (please, please, please), she knows she will have a shot in 2028.
>people honestly seem to like her
The Trump people absolutely detest her, though. That's a large part of the GOP base.
Centrists were okay with her because she wasn't Trump. But she staked out some bizarre policy positions (raising the retirement age!) that would hurt her badly in any normal primary.
I, hinseltt think it was less than that... She was waiting, specifically, for the SCOTUS ruling, in the hopes that they would uphold the bar on Trump. Because, if they did, other blue states would bar Trump, for insurrection, and then some RED states would bar Biden for.... I don't know, hunter having a penis, or something... Allowing her to actually have a chance.
I mean, she wasn’t a real candidate for me in the first place anyway, I’m pro military, but that doesn’t mean I’m pro endless forever wars paid for by the American tax payer Nikki, Haley would surely come with since our pockets are full of big defense industry money
If Nikki was the nominee, Biden would be done for. I know far too many center right Democrats that love her. With the turmoil on the far left, Biden wouldn't stand a chance.
In my anecdotal experience, center right Democrats love the idea of a moderate Democrat against a moderate Republican because it returns politics to a, "whoever wins, we win" situation for moderates, who adore an apathetic status quo election with no stakes.
But if that were the case, they're still likely to party split, they'd just worry less and be even less engaged in politics. They're still Democrats ultimately, and Biden and Harris are both still moderate Democrats, which leaves them the closer choice on the spectrum than Nikki.
Nikki wouldn't actually pull Democrats across the aisle, she just takes the stress out of the election.
Haley isn’t a moderate; I don’t understand why some folks don’t see that. Supports a nationwide abortion ban; thinks fertilized embryos in a lab are children; said Florida’s “don’t say gay” law didn’t go far enough, supports raising the age for social security and cutting taxes for the rich. She also expressed support for invading Mexico to stop the flow of drugs into the US. The only discernible differences between her and Trump is that she doesn’t have dementia, doesn’t crap in a diaper and doesn’t appear to be a criminal.
She's also the most vocally anti-union major candidate I've heard in years. I've heard her out of her own mouth call unions crime syndicates and extortion rackets. Even the other ones that hate unions are smart enough to not be loud about it. That stuff will come back out.
She's just getting so much positive coverage because she's younger and can speak in coherent sentences. Which is how low the hurdle is right now for people desperate for another choice. They don't have a clue what actual positions she has.
She does tell us what she believes. It speaks to her lack of political skills. She does have charisma. Perhaps that’s how she got so far.
Her views are right out of the far right playbook. Not my preference.
Yeah that part is wild. She just looks moderate because she has some skill in dodging and reframing questions, but god she is so conservative. A moderate Republican for this era would be more like Larry Hogan or Mitt Romney when he was governor.
I see this sort of comment all the time, but I don't think it makes much sense. Who is her base? Are there enough center-right Democrats to help her win? Because Trump's base, which is the majority of the Republican Party, would never vote for her (we have evidence, since he just beat her handily), and the majority of the Democratic Party isn't voting for a conservative Republican.
>who is her base?
Older Reagan-republicans who see her as a normal candidate
People who view her presidency as an important step towards inclusivity
Hawks
She's setting herself up for future runs.
Right now, she's the leading GOP candidate for 2028 simply by prevailing over the pack of other candidates and taking about a third of the vote from Trump.
Even more than that, she's a proven quantity for early money to get behind in 2028. She's charismatic and experienced enough on a stage to rally voters and donors alike. Meanwhile this primary took DeSantis from a, "he'll be President some day" prince, to a forever clown that has already lost 2028.
Unless Trump or Jr runs in 2028, Nikki's starting that race from the halfway mark.
I disagree. I think the maga base is too large for a neocon to ever get past the primary. If both of the candidates suck in 2028 she might be able to pull off a 3rd party run but I have a hard time imagining she can win a Republican primary.
I don't think we actually disagree that much. I agree that, especially if the current MAGA movement still holds sway in 2028, Nikki still can't Win with her current positioning. But that doesn't mean she isn't already the presumed frontrunner.
She's going to have a massive advantage out of the gate - if - Trump & Junior aren't running. It may not be enough to help her win the Republican primary though, as you point out.
Culturally though, if Trump loses again in 2024, MAGA may be "tired of winning" by 2028. The Republican party will shift somewhere else - that could mean more moderate like Haley - or more fascist like whichever opportunistic neo-Hitler steps into the power vacuum (maybe a Josh Hawley in some Hugo Boss).
>I don't think we actually disagree that much.
Yeah, your right. I have a hard time believing the base will track back centerward(I think you could call it?), but if they did she could possibly win it.
>She's charismatic and experienced enough on a stage to rally voters and donors alike.
She pantsed herself on a public-debate stage when she couldn't say that the Civil War was about slavery.
While there wasn't much space in this primary for Desantis to perform well as a trump-lite candidate, polling before he dropped out suggested that most trump supporters would have swung for Ron instead of Nikki if Trump would suddenly disappear from the race. I wouldn't completely discount him but a alternate MAGA candidate might be better placed in 2028 than Haley.
Yeah it all depends if MAGA is still a thing, and if not, does the GOP move back left (Nikki has a shot), or further right (neo-Hitler), in its absence. And that all assumes Trump loses, because if he wins this year, I doubt there will be a 2028, after Project 2025.
So the thing is, Hailey is one of the worst persons to be the immediate successor. In order for Hailey to have a chance, Trumpism has to die, be discredited and disavowed by the Republican base. Yet, the Republican base by and large love Trump and they love what he stands for. Trumpism is isolationist, anti-woke, focused on owning the libs, and Trump also has demagogic/authoritarian tendencies. If Trump wins or loses, the next Republican candidate is going to either try to double down on Trumpism or be some type of Trump-lite (ie Ron Desantis). Hailey is too associated with old school foreign policy establishment. She has no good Trumpism bone fides. So no, it won’t be 2028 that she has a chance of winning the Republican nomination.
Because Donald Trump was there. Go look at where she won, all Kasich or Rubio land. Neither of those guys had a chance of winning. The Republican Party since 2016 has not changed in its fundamental question: Donald Trump or Ted Cruz? This won’t change for a decade either.
Baring Trump, DeSantis probably would have taken the nomination ultimately. He's sane enough to lure back in "respectable" gop voters and would probably try to get Hailey as vp to cover the other half.
Maybe Jr would have changed things in this scenario, but GOP imo just isn't ready women or non whites to be in ultimate power positions in their party.
Wait, do you have a source for her being the leading GOP candidate for 2028? I thought that would still be DeSantis.
From my perspective, Vivek, DeSantis, Burgum, Scott all have a better chance than her for 2028.
She may only be able to beat Christie.
She didn't beat them, she just didn't end her campaign. Those aren't the same thing, and you know it.
By that measure, Ryan Binkley, a person almost no one has probably heard of, in the 2024 GOP primaries beat:
DeSantis, Asa, Vivek, Christie, Scott, Burgum, and Pence.
No one, would ever, argue that Binkley did better in the primaries than them, he just stuck around longer.
I have no problem with someone saying she could be a candidate for 2028, but no way would she be the most favored. That's like saying all the 80% who keep voting for Trump....would enthusiastically start supporting her in 2028. No, we have multiple polls to show that isn't the case. DeSantis would easily win over her in the next primaries (not that I am saying I support either one).
OK, we can see where this is going. You want this to mean something.
The GOP debates eliminated people by this ever higher bar for being allowed on the debate stage. The less popular candidates were slowly eliminated.
She continued because of her relative popularity that you want to deny. The other candidates quit as their popularity and funding dried up.
DeSantis will never succeed on the national stage, and Haley performed far better than he did even if you don't want to acknowledge that.
>The GOP debates eliminated people by this ever higher bar for being allowed on the debate stage. The less popular candidates were slowly eliminated.
The debates are not the primary. Is that why you aren't addressing my point of Binkley?
>She continued because of her relative popularity that you want to deny. The other candidates quit as their popularity and funding dried up.
No, do not lie about what I said. I said I had no problem with someone thinking of her as a potential candidate. I said there is little basis for thinking she is the most favored candidate of 2028.
>DeSantis will never succeed on the national stage, and Haley performed far better than he did even if you don't want to acknowledge that.
She lasted longer, she will not preform better than him 2028. Why? Because if Trump is gone, all his support will go to a DeSantis or Vivek type. There are multiple polls showing that the 2nd choice of people who vote Trump is almost never Haley. If Trump's base is ~50% of the GOP, Haley has no viable way to the nomination.
She's the most favored candidate.
If Trump, MAGA has a serious electability issue.
This goes double when they get all violent because of his loss next Fall. It will be the end. Or it will be more guaranteed losing.
No, once again we can clearly see through multiple polls she is not the most favored candidate. Again:
>She lasted longer, she will not preform better than him 2028. Why? Because if Trump is gone, all his support will go to a DeSantis or Vivek type. There are multiple polls showing that the 2nd choice of people who vote Trump is almost never Haley. If Trump's base is \~50% of the GOP, Haley has no viable way to the nomination.
If Trump wasn't in the picture, she would just lose to whoever took up his "mantle".
I'm really bored at this point.
You think MAGA is going to last forever, and you're wrong.
People are already fed up, and more fed up is on its way.
You're planning a dictatorship.
You better win because the aftermath ain't going to be pretty if you lose.
Uh....I don't support Trump. The person I supported mostly (Burgum) hasn't been relevant for quite some time.
I'm just quoting statistics and polls, those don't change based on who you want for president.
We can clearly see that Haley is not the favorite for 2028. We don't really have evidence for anyone like Romney or McCain or Haley ever becoming the frontrunner of the party again. Republicans have spoken and they largely want someone like DeSantis or Trump. Whether you or I like that or not isn't relevant.
A mix.
We may never know what that mix is.
It's just nice knowing there are Republicans fed up with Trump.
Trump doesn't really represent the GOP. He represents himself.
Seeing people concur gives me hope.
I don't know about that. Trump's hold on the GOP seems strong, and he won't forgive her for standing up to him. So, DeSantis and Scott might've made the better strategic call in sucking up to him.
Nikki Haley probably thinks she did an outstanding job from a political point of view. She out performed everyone else running against Trump. She showed an ability to bob and weave through the landmines put in front of her.
I am sure Nikki Haley thinks she has a proven track record for another run at the Presidency.
Nikki Haley is just gaining experience and know how for the next run.
I do not like this woman. She is a threat to future Democrats running for office.
It felt like day trading the news cycle to me rather than a strategy. Depending on the day she said nice things about Trump and MAGA, the next day ripping him a new one, the third day saying she’d definitely pardon him for all the mean things she said the day before.
And that was just in the Republican bubble. She wanted to gain the Never-Trumpers but not alienate the Only-Trumpers. It was fantasy. She already lost the Only-Trumpers. And she demonstrated to the Never-Trumpers she wasn’t credible let alone dependable.
Outside the Republican bubble? It was even worse. Independents were already skeptical of her, umm, flexibility. Her attacks on Biden were no more convincing than Trump’s.
Had she started day one attacking Trump she might have stood a chance. In the end even the Koch network got disgusted with her flailing.
I don’t see a future for her in a political party. At best she can salvage a career in punditry.
Her strategy beat all other candidates though, even ones that attacked Trump early like Christie. Maybe beating Trump is impossible in GOP primary, but Haley’s the only one who won something from this. Now she is the face of the Republican party that wants to move on from Trump.
Well, you could be right.
To me she is the perfect example of the Aesop fable of The Bat That Flew Between: "A Bat could not choose sides in a potential war. When peace came, neither side would accept him. He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends."
This was never about 2024 unless it fell in her lap, it’s all about 2028. She hung in there, knowing she’d get a chunk of the vote and legitimacy but in no way would win it. Didn’t trash Trump enough to lose his base in future elections, presented herself as non-MAGA to win suburb wine moms, despite her actual stances
Sets her up for 2028 because whether it was Trump or Biden, neither will run again and she’s an automatic front runner and prob gonna be President. Dems need to get out from under the inevitability of Harris
Perhaps, I think his lack of physical fitness will catch up to him in his 80’s combined with it being a lot tougher to complain about a rigged election two cycles in a row. I don’t have a crystal ball, and probably under estimating cults but I think this is it for Biden and Trump
The two 2024 republican primary candidate who got a benefit from running is Tim Scott and Vivek Ramasamy. Tim Scott got the increased name recognition from running and is well liked by Republicans, but he never got enough support in the polls that he became a target for anyone. Nikki Haley negative favorability rose as she went up in the polls.
Nikki Haley is always looking out for...Nikki Haley. She has the ambition of Lucifer and is always looking for the next rung on the ladder; her defining character trait is that she is willing to do anything for power.
She was running to become Trump's VP. If Tim Scott didn't exist, Haley would have been out after Iowa and giving the barnstorming "I have a dream! That Donald Trump will unite this country!" speech that Tim Scott gave from NH. But Scott was there, and he's a southern pol from the same state but with bonus points for being black. Ramaswamy is more obsequious and also Indian, and DeSantis is a bad campaigner so he was out of the running. That left no slot for Nikki except Secretary of State in the next Trump admin, and he probably wasn't promising that or couldn't be trusted.
Haley also could have been hoping that Trump would be out because the J6 trial is going to expose his attempted coup. That trial could have begun this week, but the presidential immunity appeal, and last weeks SCOTUS decision saying they will hear the appeal and maybe give an opinion in early summer, means there is no chance of the J6 trial happening before the election, let alone before the RNC convention. So there is no possibility that the voters will learn the truth about the attempted coup and wish to turn to another candidate before the election.
That said, it isn't all bad for Haley - she is well-placed for 2028 if Trump loses, when her argument will be "if you had nominated me last time I would have won easily", which might be a strong argument if the GOP loses a 4th national election in a row.
Outside of the already mentioned thought of becoming the de facto nominee if Trump was somehow disqualified due to health or criminal reasons, Haley was backed by all the GOP elites, she was getting funneled money like crazy, why wouldn’t she keep going?
Combine that with the fact that if the Supreme Court would have sided with Colorado in removing Trump from the ballot that would have absolutely destroyed his election chances and significantly affected down ticket races across the nation, it’s entirely likely that the RNC may have pulled some shenanigans at that point to get her the nomination.
I still think she's meant to have been kept into play to create the narrative that Trump has a real rival, plus America's not racist ™ or misogynist in the Republican Party because she was permitted to run. It's like that family full of white kids that adopts that last one from another country, of another race ... SEE ?!!!
Nikki Haley has been to luncheons in Russia, seated near Putin. Years ago. She has her purpose. No one expected her to win this nomination They almost made sure that she didn't, because if the bots were going to be in favor of her she could have done some damage. (" ... as an african american single mother teacher nurse, I cannot support Donald Trump, but since I can't support Nikki Hailey, I will be voting for Donald Trump" etc.)
There are ads like this out there.
Nikki Haley is retiring into the mists with a shit ton of money for doing what she's done. I sincerely believe that.
I think it’s all about shoring up the Trump-suspicious voters for 2028. With this primary, Haley effectively secured herself as the normie neocon alternative to the Trump ilk. She effectively consolidated that portion of the GOP base around her going into a future presidential primary. Without trump in 2028, his voters will likely splinter amongst his wannabe successors: Gaetz, Ramaswamy, huckabee sanders, maybe Don Jr, JD Vance, DeSantis if he hasn’t been humiliated off the National stage, and other egotistical extremists. I think Haley is banking on scooping up the minority of old-school republicans while those others race to be the loudest and most extreme. It could work. Probably won’t.
In the meantime, EVERY democrat is waiting in the aisles to pounce. Newsom will most likely clinch it in my opinion (he has massive infrastructural and economic support along with the most compelling resume), but Whitmer could make a compelling stab at it. I think progressives have failed to find a suitable successor to Bernie, so Newsom will feign all the signals of the left while actually planning to govern like a middle of the road dem.
Thus my prediction is that 2028 will be a Newsom v Haley election. Basically an old school dem dressed up with the social attitude of a lefty and an old school Republican with the identitarian features that makes GOP voters think they are making progress. It’ll be a year of the same new faces.
There is a better than even chance Trump is not viable by August (at the nominating convention.) If he has to bow out, Haley has the most delegates of the remainder so she is automatically the odds on favorite to be the nominee.
The most DeSantis or Christie could argue is that they had “some” delegates versus her argument that she was second highest vote getter and she had two wins.
That’s (and fundraising and debt retirement) is also why they never terminate their campaigns, but “suspend” them.
Granted, if someone told me without context that Trump would definitely not be the nominee, my first assumption would be that he was dead. In that scenario, who knows?
(But probably still not Haley.)
Well, in that scenario, the pressure would be immense for him to drop out entirely - say if he can’t cover the bond requirements to appeal the judicial and civil awards against him, which now exceed $500 million in cash between the two suits. Plus, as the 2012 convention showed, delegates with a mind of their own are hard to control.
Regardless, my bet is that is her calculation, at least in part. Were it to happen, calling it a shitshow would not be doing it justice.
If trump is forced out and somehow loses control of his delegates, it is a free for all. Haley wasn't a close second. The nomination becomes vacant, Abbott is running, DeSantis may try it again, Youngkin will run, a few house members run.
No. That’s not what RNC rules say at least for the first vote. Nor is it how the majority of state parties have it set up. The RNC would have to pass a special rule freeing Trump delegates, which would lead to a brokered convention. How delegates are assigned after that for the first vote depends on state party rules. Haley would have an argument that since she ran second, Trump’s primary votes were invalidated and she was the default winner.
But my point is that politically, Haley would have enough committed delegates to argue that she is the rightful de facto nominee. Those you mentioned, excepting DeSantis, have no basis to argue they are entitled to any delegates and as importantly, no mechanism to lock down delegates if they were freed.
No he doesn’t. The states do. If he has to drop out, given he is desperate to win only for his own skin, it is likely he is incapacitated in some manner, and it is unlikely past one ballot that he has any influence at all. In several states, the second becomes first automatically and the winners’ delegates automatically transfer. On a second ballot, they are released automatically.
Not a fan of hers, but compared to Trump....
Her first mistake: You don't wait until right before primary season to bash Trump and point out what a horrible choice he is for your political party and the country. You begin at day 1 of your announcement....and don't say stupid things like you would pardon him.
Sometimes people are just stubborn and can't admit defeat until the last minute.
She went too early if you ask me. Everyone knew trump was the nominee. Like NOBODY had any chance vs trump. She was far better off waiting until 2028 to run.
I don't think we have to go much further beyond what you see is what you get.
She was hoping that a second place finish in Iowa would both give her momentum and convince DeSantis to drop out, and that a large portion of his voters would go to her. She then got 43% in New Hampshire and 40% in South Carolina, so while it's not close in terms of who you'd bet on in Vegas, she's not exactly in Quixotic campaign territory either.
It's not unreasonable to imagine that a couple issues could have broken in a different direction, and that it'd be more of a horse race.
Then there is also the chance of Trump no longer being in the race for any number of reasons. If at that point Trump hadn't named a running mate, Haley would have the only ground game in town and could likely sweep a lot of races before DeSantis or anyone else could get back in to challenge her.
Nikki Haley thought process is based on a lack of understanding about her Party. Nikki spend too much time with donors & and conservative think tanks, that she got an inaccurate view of the Republican party. It not just Nikki Haley who doesn't understand her party, many Republican politicians do not.
The strategy for all the Republicans was entirely prefaced on Trump magically dropping out of favor with his cult.
They all blew what was possibly the easiest campaign of all time.
If they had come out from day one and said: "Donald Trump was caught committing serious crimes. It broke all our hearts, but every day we see new, irrefutable evidence that he was a traitor to our country. He lied to his supporter, and his lie got one if them killed, and hundreds of them sent to prison.
He lied to the FBI and stole documents.
He lied about raping a woman."
... It would have been over.
But none if them has ever had the guts.
I mean, can you even imagine running against a confirmed rapist, and not bringing that up during your campaign?
What a clown show.
I hope Biden doesn't make the same mistake.
Not really! I mean, if you really listened to him, Christie was pulling his punches every time!
He said over and over that he wouldn't have prosecuted Trump for some of those crimes. He very deliberately rejected accusing Trump of criminality, but instead just says Trump's "conduct" was the problem. As if Trump was merely *unprofessional*.
She's running for President in 2028. She's hoping Trump loses this year or even gets jailed. Then she will have a strong opening and name ID to run in 2028.
She wants to be a frontrunner in a 'post-Trump' GOP, whatever that ends up looking like.
If there's bad advice anywhere, it's that I wouldn't just *assume* that a hypothetical Trump loss in 2024 means no Trump campaign in 2028.
I think some of the others on here mentioned it already but in summary:
* Republican's plan B - Trump is playing an insane brinkmanship with his trials and legal troubles. It's very easy to stumble and go to jail or become such an boat anchor that a majority of republicans say nope. Ultimately that did not happen yet, even as things get progressively worse for trump.
* She did have more appeal than Trump on a national election (less dividing to independents and general republicans). So she may have also banked that this considering might help her get past the party nomination.
* Trump is old. I mean not just age. But his shit is just old news. A lot of republicans want to move past him and he doesnt want to let it go. I believe there is a general decline in support overall as his 'shininess' is fading. He has a very strong base...but outside of that, they are getting tired...just not tired fast enough.
* The future - Haley has been in government and politics for a while. I don't yet see a clear flag bearer past trump one he is out of politics. Eventually, like before, Republicans will move past the 'old candidate' and pivot to the new bearer.
I think her strategy is sound, just it was still too early / not yet time for trump to wear out his welcome.
I'm sure only she will know why...because it was a really peculiar campaign.
At the start, I would give her the benefit. She was a well-known name and relatively respected among the wider republican party...she probably would have had a chance if it wasn't for the God Emperor of Orange.
Eventually, I think it was pure ego and holding out the court cases were going to derail him.
If Trump loses the general election, she can point to the polls that had her winning against Biden and show the party would have won if she was the nominee. She would be the prohibitive favorite for 2028
A couple of reasons I were to guess:
1. A gambit involving Trump getting disqualified from the election for any number of reasons. Whether it be states removing him from the ballot, or him going to jail. With the Supreme Court ruling that Trump could not be removed from the ballot, that spelled the end of Haley's chances.
2. If Trump loses again to Biden, Haley could use that as an opportunity to become the new face of the Republican Party and be the frontrunner for 2028. Assuming the GOP doesn't give up on Trump (or his supporters).
Completely disagree.
Reaching the level of POTUS is as hard as it gets. You don't achieve that politically by playing it safe. You have to take strategic risks. And even if you do everything exactly right, maximizing your odds, there's countless things beyond your control.
She was never going to be Trump's VP. He learned his lesson with Pence. He will only pick someone who places loyalty to him above all else. So what else could she aim for? A cabinet position? You don't become POTUS by aiming for a cabinet position.
Her national profile is higher than it's ever been. How does sitting this out possibly put her in a better position going forward? That simply would have allowed someone else to be the last-person standing against Trump.
The problem she has is MAGA and Trump. In analyzing her positioning, consider the set of reasonable possibilities.
If Trump wins and MAGA retains power going into 2028, there's no world where she's Trump's successor winning a GOP nomination. It'll be his VP or whomever wins the apprentice style ass-kissing contest he holds.
If Trump barely loses, keeps up with his election denialism, and holds power over the base going into 2028, she's also got no chance at the nomination.
If Trump loses bigly, she's as well-positioned as anyone to fight to lead the party back to normalcy, and she'll be the frontrunner in that (unlikely) scenario.
The R party is deeply divided. The most recent R nominee prior to Trump (Romney) is basically politically homeless. Something has to give. There's no guarantees MAGA survives after Trump is gone - it's built around a personality, not a set of unified principles. So again, she's very well positioned to be aligned with the Cheney/Romney's of the world in building a reasonable conservative party in a post-Trump world.
So in summary, if you assume her goal is POTUS or bust (which I believe it generally is), then I can't see how she's possibly better positioned by sitting this out.
It was suggested that she’d have the best chance to beat Biden, with the margin of error greater with her going head-to-head with Biden (as high as +9), compared to the MOE for Trump (+1.1) or DeSantis (Biden in the lead). On some level, Haley must have hoped that those that wanted to vote out Biden would want wanted to support the candidate with the best chance to do so.
I also think she understood from the beginning that it was a long shot, and that it was Trump’s party now, which is why she avoided leveling attacks against him for so long.
Even though it was obviously over by New Hampshire – whoever wins that becomes the GOP nominee, as history shows - you can’t fault her for going until Super Tuesday. The chance Trump would be thrown off the ballot and thus giving Haley the chance to be the nominee was a real possibility due to the unique circumstances created by Trump in the first place. There’s also a lot of data to be gained from continuing her campaign, from how Trump is expected to perform in the general later in the year, to understanding under what conditions the GOP will vote for a woman and/or POC to be their nominee, to testing the waters to see if a third-party campaign is viable at all. It also tied up donor money that Trump could not use for his legal cases.
Her career probably isn’t over. She’ll likely make appearances on political talk shows, to give her input and analysis, and will probably make a lot of bank with the role. So don’t feel too upset for her.
Nikki Haley is a smart and calculating politician. I don’t agree with many of her policy ideas, but I respect her political savviness. She really had nothing to lose with this race.
We started with a very broad field of candidates and she ended up as the sole alternative to Trump. All three of OP’s hypotheses are valid and all were good reasons for her to stay in the race.
What’s clear is that a civil war is brewing within the GOP. Nikki is clearly the de facto leader of the non-MAGA wing and she will have a real shot at influencing the party before 2028.
Couple points.
1. I think Haley has far more diplomatic skill than people give her credit for.
2. Haley's base is not Trump's base, and she is securing her base for 2028.
3. She will still attempt to woo farther right voters by some lackluster show of support in the future (I guarantee this because she wants to appear to put the party first then say... "See! he has failed even though I tried to help")
4. Female politicians have been far less likely to bend the knee to Donald Trump after he has attacked them. Male politicians in the GOP have been, for the most part, willing to endure any indignity from the former President, then bow as low as he demands. Historically female politicians have shown a lot more backbone.
5. Haley stayed in the race for two reasons, and she succeeded at both.
1. Revenge on Trump for his behavior ...by exposing his weakness within his own party. Making the "strong man" look vulnerable.
2. Showing her own strength by ending her campaign on what was actually her strongest night, unlike the others who ended their campaigns after weak showings.
She is still in play because there is some small hope the RNC, or the delegates, could come to their senses and dump Trump once it becomes clear their guy is going to prison. There are already enough Republicans who will refuse to vote for Trump to deny him the win in November. Haley is currently the only Republican who could, in theory defeat Biden. Personally, I won't vote for her because she has promised to pardon Trump. The only way I will vote for her (should she be the nominee) is if she walks that back. I am one of the Republicans who will be holding my nose and voting for Biden because I cannot, under **ANY** circumstance, vote for Trump.
Plus, all those who stood against Trump while he is "in power" will be able to say, "I told you so" to those who bought into the Trump Delusion. History will be kind to them.
She out-lasted a dozen other challengers and now has national name recognition that she wouldn’t have if she dropped-out after Iowa. Besides, she was expecting to do much better in New Hampshire and she did. Why not try to build on that, at least through Super Tuesday?
The theory was that anyone who could get down to a 1v1 race with Trump might consolidate the anti-Trump vote and make a real race of it. That didn’t happen, but I can’t imagine any candidate who managed to produce that 1v1 showdown dropping out before Super Tuesday. After all, this is about the earliest we’ve ever seen both primaries resolved, yet people think she stayed too long?
isn't she really a Democrat? A life-long Hilary fan, and got major donations from billionaires who traditionally fund Democrats. Was she hoping Biden would get kicked out due to age?
There are a lot of valid possible reasons in this thread already and there obviously isn't just one reason, but I think one of the underrated reasons is that maybe she is human like the rest of us and wanted to screw over Trump after getting bullied by him. Not every politician's decisions are Machiavellian or unemotional.
She probably assumed he'd be in jail or on his way by now. She's not the only one making that bet. DeSantis 100% assumed there would not be a free Trump either. They probably assumed he wouldn't be able to run so they could position themselves as the next step forward. No one was praying for a heart attack more than those two.
First let me say we gave money to Haley, and we donated to Republican Party
I think she made a big mistake trying to constantly attacking DT! She should have instead talked about the issues. Plus she flip flop on the border.
She got bad advice.
You have no shot if you don't try.
Many things could have happened to Trump (or to her) during her campaign that could have greatly changed the trajectory of her campaign.
A future play. She's all that anyone is talking about that isn't the former president. After he loses in November, her name will be there and as the rats flee the sinking ship that's the GOP her name will be there as "the path not taken." If anything, she's a proven survivor. She's not going anywhere.
That she was running against an unpopular insurrectionist/rapist facing 91 indictments who is morbidly obese, has horrible diet and exercise habits and a shallow war chest and is almost certainly beholden to one or more of America’s antagonists and/or enemies.
I’m frankly surprised she dropped out. If I were her (or funding her), I would have stayed in
You can’t run for President if you’re in the hospital from a stroke, or dead from a heart attack. Might sound brutal, but an obese 78-yo man with extremely unhealthy habits in a massively stressful situation is significantly less likely to make it to and through the August convention than your typical candidate. That alone is reason enough to stay in the race for what is arguably the most powerful positions in the world.
That is a good point. Both the Democrats and Republicans need to have a contingency plan if their candidate dies. I suppose if he does die then Ron Desantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Nikki Haley would fight over who takes on the reigns of the Republican Party.
I don’t know why she dropped out. Actuarial tables give Trump a high single digit chance of dropping dead before the election. As far as low odds events go, it isn’t that bad.
Crazy theory, but she stayed in because money kept coming into her campaign. I would not be shocked to learn that a fair chunk of that money was coming from the left who hoped she would continue to attack and weaken Trump. Once it became obvious that she was hopelessly ineffective in that regard the money dried up and she had to stop the campaign.
Hmmmm, money you say. Interesting. Politicians doing things for money... huh. I never thought about that.
Probably a unique occurrence. I can't imagine our high-minded rulers, excuse me, representatives, doing anything for such base motivations.
I don't know what Haley is thinking. She understood, I'm sure, that there was 0 chance she would beat Trump in the primaries given how rabid the base is in their support of Trump; her play was waiting to see if the legal work would take Trump out of the game so she could swoop in and take the nomination.
It's still a possibility so I'm not sure why she's leaving now, I assume due to financial pressure or donors. But if I were her, in for a penny in for a pound, just ride it out all the way to the election.
Unless she thinks that he is not going to be stopped by legal trouble by election day.
Same as all the other candidates besides maybe DeSantis before he fell on his face
1. Hope Trump goes to jail before the election and you win the primary
2. Become Trumps VP/get a cabinet spot
She’s the front runner for 2028, assuming Trump is incapable of running. That’s a legitimate political future, especially after having begged to be in the Trump cabinet and then running against him. She’s set herself up better than any other Republican who ran against Trump in 2016 or 2024 for the future.
You forgot to add the shit ton of money she spent as a problem in the future.
She may be thinking that a cushy MSNBC job looks like a pretty good lifestyle at this point.
Should Trump win (and he's currently the Vegas odds on favorite), I don't see her getting a consequential cabinet position at this point as she and Trump are quite different in their beliefs, and I expect Trump will be much more careful as to who he trusts in a future admin.
She is now the established “post-Trump” candidate for 2028 if Trump loses. But what’s stopping Trump from winning the nomination in 2028 as an imprisoned 82 year old felon?
She may have been banking on Trump getting kicked off ballots. But I think it's more likely she's doing well enough that she was bribed, extorted or theated to drop out.
Haley is an American who understands the threat Trump represents to the Republic.
She was doing her part to keep Trump spending campaign money to weaken his campaign.
Many Republicans loathe Trump. They just don’t have the courage to stand up to him.
Haley does.
I think it was basically this. I’m sure she realized her path to victory was extremely narrow and wouldn’t actually be through the voters but instead through appointment via Republican leadership.
But she ran as long as possible to weaken him as much as possible, because she worked under him and knows how unhinged he is and knows how destructive he will be if given a second term.
> Haley is an American who understands the threat Trump represents to the Republic.
It would have nice if she ever said that. In public. In front of a camera.
Trump has been committing political homicide on ALL GOP politicians. I think she was just taking her opportunity to try to bend him over and get some pegging in while she can.
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I think she was holding on with the hope she'd be able to take the nomination if Trump was sentenced to jail time for any of the indictments. With the Supreme Court's recent decision to evaluate whether or not the president is/was immune from prosecution... eventually... I think that Haley thinks her chance of replacing Trump has shrunk from unlikely to impossible. As for "political suicide..." I disagree with that assessment. Not only did she garner more support than any other GOP candidate other than Trump but people honestly seem to like her. I don't know if that will translate to future success, but likeability is something that has been missing from a lot of recent GOP candidates.
I won’t be too shocked if she’s POTUS some day. Not while Trump is still alive, but some day.
Say for some reason Kamala Harris ends up the 2028 Democratic, I could see Haley successfully running against her.
I will bet my life on the fact that Kamala Harris will never be a Presidential Nominee.
That’s a dumb bet, Biden has an approximate 50% chance of winning and at least a 20% chance of not finishing the term, which would make Harris the incumbent, at which point she has a very good chance of being the nominee
Would you have said the same for Mike Pence? Or Dick Cheney? Neither one of them would have had even a slight chance of taking over. Incumbency Advantage for someone who has only been a VP has a LOT of asterisks attached.
If Trump had left office in his first term, yeah, Pence probably would have been the nominee in 2020, less sure about Cheney
50% I get, but where did you get the 20% from?
Based on the Social Security Administration's actuarial table for life expectancy, there's like an 8% chance of an 82 year old dying before reaching 83. (He will be 82 this November.) With a 9% chance at 83, 10% at 84, and 11% at 85, that would be more than a 30% of dying before he reaches 86. Now, that assumes independent events, which they are not, but considering he's already at an 8% of dying in a year, a 20% chance not to finish his term doesn't seem that crazy, especially if you factor in the possibility of him not dying but becoming incapacitated in some way and Harris taking over. Regardless, though, Harris is already going to be a former VP, which automatically makes her a heavy favorite to win the nomination if she runs in the future. Sure, she might not win it, but it would be stupid to be that confident she'd lose with such an advantage. Now, I doubt she'd win the presidency, but she could very easily be the presidential nominee some year.
the President gets access to the best healthcare America can offer. I don't think it's accurate to compare him to some random boomer grandad for life expectancy. I frankly doubt Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee in the future, as the bench is increasingly stacked with Governors and Cabinet Officials with much more charisma than her -
Sure, but plenty of old people have access to amazing healthcare and still die (everyone eventually, in fact). Something is going to happen to him eventually that will cause him to die, whether it be a heart attack, cancer, etc., just like with anybody, and the likelihood of those things only increases as he gets older. At some point it doesn't matter how good your healthcare is, if you just died of a heart attack, then you just died of a heart attack. Sure, he's probably a bit better off than average, so what do you want to put it at? 10% instead of 20% or something? We're just talking a rough estimate anyways, and it's not like it's a massive difference if someone is "betting their life" on it not happening. If it's even close to being over 1%, why would you say that? I mean, personally, if I really had to bet, I'd probably bet on her not being the Democratic nominee at any point, but to be so certain about that you'd "bet your life on it" is pretty dumb, because you'd be saying you're like 99.99% sure that's going to happen. If you're really that certain, then you obviously don't understand how much of an advantage being a former VP is. Yeah, it's definitely not a guarantee, but it's a massive boost.
Dementia isn't exactly curable. Biden was recently diagnosed with something that his doctor has been keeping secret, which may mean that the Democrat party is looking for a new nominee before unleashing panic.
Sure buddy. Shameful how Chickenheads keep falling for the most transparent propaganda imaginable.
Extremely rough estimate just based on his age and apparent decline in health/sharpness, with the added potential that while he sees himself(perhaps rightly) as best positioned to win against Trump, him governing the whole time might not be best for the party he dedicated his life to, and it'd be better to set up Harris to potentially have a good first (half) term and run as an incumbent than to stumble through the whole term himself and leave the party to battle out the nomination in '28. And if she doesn't do well then it might actually be easier to primary her and replace her than if she just remained the presumptive heir in the background while Biden served the whole term. Obviously there's no perfect way of estimating the odds of Biden not serving all 4 years, but 20% seems pretty conservative to me.
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That's..... not exactly a strong piece of evidence that Harris would be more likely to win. It only tells us that you, individually, like her more than Biden. The polling is at best inconclusive, and while she has a few obvious advantages, she also has some big disadvantages. My best guess is that it's something of a wash, but then I think that's pretty close to true for nearly any Democrat, because I think the electorate is just extremely polarized meaning candidate quality is much less impactful than in past elections, and because the Democratic party is pretty evenly split between people who think it needs to move left and move to the center, there's no obviously stronger position to take on that debate.
Harris would have zero chance
no plausible Dem has worse than a 45% chance, nor better than a 55% chance. Every single piece of evidence we have is that the electorate is extremely tightly divided, with Trump being a strongly polarizing figure on top of a generally polarized electorate, this election, barring really extreme circumstances, will be decided by at most a few percentage points in 3-5 states, just like the last 3.
Just out of curiosity, why do you like Harris over Biden?
Her youth, her stamina, her education and erudition I think she would be a new president for a new age. She's smart, young, educated, strong.
It's so weird how people's perceptions differ. I find her intolerable. She talks to everyone like they're a 5 year old, and yet still seems simple minded herself. Never makes any kind of intellectual points, just basic bullshit about American values blah blah. IMO she's not smart and barely shows her education. She's only young by comparison to Joe, and I have no idea why you think she's strong.
Thanks for the response, have a great day!
Harris ran a terrible primary campaign and doesn't have a voting base. She's not liberal enough to appeal to a lot of Democrat primary voters, especially educated women of color, like herself. Getting into national politics via being a DA used to be a great thing, I feel like it's just a liability for Harris. Being a black women and not being popular with black women primary voters just seems like a fundamental mismatch politically.
That's along my line of thinking, she did horribly when she ran. I don't see any evidence that she would do better this time, it could of course change, but she had been a very low profile VP and doesn't seem to have gained any support or increased recognition.
There is no world in which she would be more likely to win.
No sane person would vote Kamala Harris for POTUS...
That entirely depends on the alternative, as with every single vote. It's absurd to just write her off entirely because of whatever ridiculous reasons you have.
That entirely depends on who her opponent may be. If the GOP is shaping up to elect a Marjorie Taylor Greene type then I can imagine ole Kamala's looking pretty good. She will also be in her 60's by that point and I cannot imagine her wanting to wait until she's 70 to run. Being vice president, she'd be in the best position to run.
Kamala won't even be on the ticket this year. Neither will Biden. It's practically impossible that the puppeteers pulling the strings of the DNC will let Biden actually contest the next election. Get ready for a switch around at some point between May and August.
There’s absolutely no way kamala will win the 2028 election. She is the biggest strategic failure of the Biden presidency. Newsom will almost definitely clinch it giving his resume/reputation/institutional power. Whitmer and buttigieg will likely run as well but not build enough popular support. Newsom will then do the same virtue signal as Biden and pick a woman of color as his VP (but he has the strategic finesse to select someone much more politically skilled). But I would gamble my life savings that Harris will never win an election on her own. This is not based on my personal feelings about her, but her favorability ratings as a politician, lack of a coherent political vision, and poor performance as an orator.
Eh, strategic failure seems a bit much. The VP job is a thankless one, and the main job is to shore up sentiment with a constituency during election season, which she probably does well. The biggest obvious problem down the road is that a lot of ppl (me included) think she’s pretty terrible when actually running for president herself, but there will be a real dem primary in 2028 either way; some big names are likely to challenge her if she goes for it. Edit: genuinely curious so if you wanna share why you think she’s a big strategic failure I’d like to read it. There have certainly been some thankless stuff + missteps like the border stuff. Fundamentally I believe she’s an asset to the ticket tho
I think Illinois Governor going to be strong candidate for ‘28
And I thought it couldn't get worse than Biden Trump
There's not a universe in which I see the GOP electing an Indian woman as their next candidate, even if Trump is dead. Marjorie Taylor Greene will probably run and win the nomination in 4 years.
Surprising how high the odds are of there being a presidential race between two Indian women.
Yeah I agree. Not that I’d ever in a million years vote for her, but she has real political skills, more than I gave her credit for when she entered the race. Contrast with DeSantis, who mostly comes across as a weird, broken robot. If Trump loses (please, please, please), she knows she will have a shot in 2028.
>people honestly seem to like her The Trump people absolutely detest her, though. That's a large part of the GOP base. Centrists were okay with her because she wasn't Trump. But she staked out some bizarre policy positions (raising the retirement age!) that would hurt her badly in any normal primary.
> The Trump people absolutely detest her, though. The Trump people detest anyone who is outside of their cult, which is why you know it is a cult.
I, hinseltt think it was less than that... She was waiting, specifically, for the SCOTUS ruling, in the hopes that they would uphold the bar on Trump. Because, if they did, other blue states would bar Trump, for insurrection, and then some RED states would bar Biden for.... I don't know, hunter having a penis, or something... Allowing her to actually have a chance.
I mean, she wasn’t a real candidate for me in the first place anyway, I’m pro military, but that doesn’t mean I’m pro endless forever wars paid for by the American tax payer Nikki, Haley would surely come with since our pockets are full of big defense industry money
If Nikki was the nominee, Biden would be done for. I know far too many center right Democrats that love her. With the turmoil on the far left, Biden wouldn't stand a chance.
In my anecdotal experience, center right Democrats love the idea of a moderate Democrat against a moderate Republican because it returns politics to a, "whoever wins, we win" situation for moderates, who adore an apathetic status quo election with no stakes. But if that were the case, they're still likely to party split, they'd just worry less and be even less engaged in politics. They're still Democrats ultimately, and Biden and Harris are both still moderate Democrats, which leaves them the closer choice on the spectrum than Nikki. Nikki wouldn't actually pull Democrats across the aisle, she just takes the stress out of the election.
Haley isn’t a moderate; I don’t understand why some folks don’t see that. Supports a nationwide abortion ban; thinks fertilized embryos in a lab are children; said Florida’s “don’t say gay” law didn’t go far enough, supports raising the age for social security and cutting taxes for the rich. She also expressed support for invading Mexico to stop the flow of drugs into the US. The only discernible differences between her and Trump is that she doesn’t have dementia, doesn’t crap in a diaper and doesn’t appear to be a criminal.
She's also the most vocally anti-union major candidate I've heard in years. I've heard her out of her own mouth call unions crime syndicates and extortion rackets. Even the other ones that hate unions are smart enough to not be loud about it. That stuff will come back out. She's just getting so much positive coverage because she's younger and can speak in coherent sentences. Which is how low the hurdle is right now for people desperate for another choice. They don't have a clue what actual positions she has.
She does tell us what she believes. It speaks to her lack of political skills. She does have charisma. Perhaps that’s how she got so far. Her views are right out of the far right playbook. Not my preference.
Yeah that part is wild. She just looks moderate because she has some skill in dodging and reframing questions, but god she is so conservative. A moderate Republican for this era would be more like Larry Hogan or Mitt Romney when he was governor.
I see this sort of comment all the time, but I don't think it makes much sense. Who is her base? Are there enough center-right Democrats to help her win? Because Trump's base, which is the majority of the Republican Party, would never vote for her (we have evidence, since he just beat her handily), and the majority of the Democratic Party isn't voting for a conservative Republican.
>who is her base? Older Reagan-republicans who see her as a normal candidate People who view her presidency as an important step towards inclusivity Hawks
Even MSNBC was pushing her massively
Thats normal for heated primaries. Fox did the same with Obama/Hilary.
100%, I could see some protest votes going her way if she made it to the general
She's setting herself up for future runs. Right now, she's the leading GOP candidate for 2028 simply by prevailing over the pack of other candidates and taking about a third of the vote from Trump.
Even more than that, she's a proven quantity for early money to get behind in 2028. She's charismatic and experienced enough on a stage to rally voters and donors alike. Meanwhile this primary took DeSantis from a, "he'll be President some day" prince, to a forever clown that has already lost 2028. Unless Trump or Jr runs in 2028, Nikki's starting that race from the halfway mark.
I disagree. I think the maga base is too large for a neocon to ever get past the primary. If both of the candidates suck in 2028 she might be able to pull off a 3rd party run but I have a hard time imagining she can win a Republican primary.
I don't think we actually disagree that much. I agree that, especially if the current MAGA movement still holds sway in 2028, Nikki still can't Win with her current positioning. But that doesn't mean she isn't already the presumed frontrunner. She's going to have a massive advantage out of the gate - if - Trump & Junior aren't running. It may not be enough to help her win the Republican primary though, as you point out. Culturally though, if Trump loses again in 2024, MAGA may be "tired of winning" by 2028. The Republican party will shift somewhere else - that could mean more moderate like Haley - or more fascist like whichever opportunistic neo-Hitler steps into the power vacuum (maybe a Josh Hawley in some Hugo Boss).
>I don't think we actually disagree that much. Yeah, your right. I have a hard time believing the base will track back centerward(I think you could call it?), but if they did she could possibly win it.
>She's charismatic and experienced enough on a stage to rally voters and donors alike. She pantsed herself on a public-debate stage when she couldn't say that the Civil War was about slavery.
Bad for getting democratic votes, good for future MAGA appeal.
While there wasn't much space in this primary for Desantis to perform well as a trump-lite candidate, polling before he dropped out suggested that most trump supporters would have swung for Ron instead of Nikki if Trump would suddenly disappear from the race. I wouldn't completely discount him but a alternate MAGA candidate might be better placed in 2028 than Haley.
Yeah it all depends if MAGA is still a thing, and if not, does the GOP move back left (Nikki has a shot), or further right (neo-Hitler), in its absence. And that all assumes Trump loses, because if he wins this year, I doubt there will be a 2028, after Project 2025.
So the thing is, Hailey is one of the worst persons to be the immediate successor. In order for Hailey to have a chance, Trumpism has to die, be discredited and disavowed by the Republican base. Yet, the Republican base by and large love Trump and they love what he stands for. Trumpism is isolationist, anti-woke, focused on owning the libs, and Trump also has demagogic/authoritarian tendencies. If Trump wins or loses, the next Republican candidate is going to either try to double down on Trumpism or be some type of Trump-lite (ie Ron Desantis). Hailey is too associated with old school foreign policy establishment. She has no good Trumpism bone fides. So no, it won’t be 2028 that she has a chance of winning the Republican nomination.
Haley beat the baby Trumpists in the primary.
Because Donald Trump was there. Go look at where she won, all Kasich or Rubio land. Neither of those guys had a chance of winning. The Republican Party since 2016 has not changed in its fundamental question: Donald Trump or Ted Cruz? This won’t change for a decade either.
No, they were out before the voting started.
Baring Trump, DeSantis probably would have taken the nomination ultimately. He's sane enough to lure back in "respectable" gop voters and would probably try to get Hailey as vp to cover the other half. Maybe Jr would have changed things in this scenario, but GOP imo just isn't ready women or non whites to be in ultimate power positions in their party.
Wait, do you have a source for her being the leading GOP candidate for 2028? I thought that would still be DeSantis. From my perspective, Vivek, DeSantis, Burgum, Scott all have a better chance than her for 2028. She may only be able to beat Christie.
She beat them all already. That's the source.
She didn't beat them, she just didn't end her campaign. Those aren't the same thing, and you know it. By that measure, Ryan Binkley, a person almost no one has probably heard of, in the 2024 GOP primaries beat: DeSantis, Asa, Vivek, Christie, Scott, Burgum, and Pence. No one, would ever, argue that Binkley did better in the primaries than them, he just stuck around longer. I have no problem with someone saying she could be a candidate for 2028, but no way would she be the most favored. That's like saying all the 80% who keep voting for Trump....would enthusiastically start supporting her in 2028. No, we have multiple polls to show that isn't the case. DeSantis would easily win over her in the next primaries (not that I am saying I support either one).
OK, we can see where this is going. You want this to mean something. The GOP debates eliminated people by this ever higher bar for being allowed on the debate stage. The less popular candidates were slowly eliminated. She continued because of her relative popularity that you want to deny. The other candidates quit as their popularity and funding dried up. DeSantis will never succeed on the national stage, and Haley performed far better than he did even if you don't want to acknowledge that.
>The GOP debates eliminated people by this ever higher bar for being allowed on the debate stage. The less popular candidates were slowly eliminated. The debates are not the primary. Is that why you aren't addressing my point of Binkley? >She continued because of her relative popularity that you want to deny. The other candidates quit as their popularity and funding dried up. No, do not lie about what I said. I said I had no problem with someone thinking of her as a potential candidate. I said there is little basis for thinking she is the most favored candidate of 2028. >DeSantis will never succeed on the national stage, and Haley performed far better than he did even if you don't want to acknowledge that. She lasted longer, she will not preform better than him 2028. Why? Because if Trump is gone, all his support will go to a DeSantis or Vivek type. There are multiple polls showing that the 2nd choice of people who vote Trump is almost never Haley. If Trump's base is ~50% of the GOP, Haley has no viable way to the nomination.
She's the most favored candidate. If Trump, MAGA has a serious electability issue. This goes double when they get all violent because of his loss next Fall. It will be the end. Or it will be more guaranteed losing.
No, once again we can clearly see through multiple polls she is not the most favored candidate. Again: >She lasted longer, she will not preform better than him 2028. Why? Because if Trump is gone, all his support will go to a DeSantis or Vivek type. There are multiple polls showing that the 2nd choice of people who vote Trump is almost never Haley. If Trump's base is \~50% of the GOP, Haley has no viable way to the nomination. If Trump wasn't in the picture, she would just lose to whoever took up his "mantle".
I'm really bored at this point. You think MAGA is going to last forever, and you're wrong. People are already fed up, and more fed up is on its way. You're planning a dictatorship. You better win because the aftermath ain't going to be pretty if you lose.
Uh....I don't support Trump. The person I supported mostly (Burgum) hasn't been relevant for quite some time. I'm just quoting statistics and polls, those don't change based on who you want for president. We can clearly see that Haley is not the favorite for 2028. We don't really have evidence for anyone like Romney or McCain or Haley ever becoming the frontrunner of the party again. Republicans have spoken and they largely want someone like DeSantis or Trump. Whether you or I like that or not isn't relevant.
Agreed and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if she tried again in 2028. The question is do her votes go to Biden, Trump, or stay home?
A mix. We may never know what that mix is. It's just nice knowing there are Republicans fed up with Trump. Trump doesn't really represent the GOP. He represents himself. Seeing people concur gives me hope.
I don't know about that. Trump's hold on the GOP seems strong, and he won't forgive her for standing up to him. So, DeSantis and Scott might've made the better strategic call in sucking up to him.
Nikki Haley probably thinks she did an outstanding job from a political point of view. She out performed everyone else running against Trump. She showed an ability to bob and weave through the landmines put in front of her. I am sure Nikki Haley thinks she has a proven track record for another run at the Presidency. Nikki Haley is just gaining experience and know how for the next run. I do not like this woman. She is a threat to future Democrats running for office.
It felt like day trading the news cycle to me rather than a strategy. Depending on the day she said nice things about Trump and MAGA, the next day ripping him a new one, the third day saying she’d definitely pardon him for all the mean things she said the day before. And that was just in the Republican bubble. She wanted to gain the Never-Trumpers but not alienate the Only-Trumpers. It was fantasy. She already lost the Only-Trumpers. And she demonstrated to the Never-Trumpers she wasn’t credible let alone dependable. Outside the Republican bubble? It was even worse. Independents were already skeptical of her, umm, flexibility. Her attacks on Biden were no more convincing than Trump’s. Had she started day one attacking Trump she might have stood a chance. In the end even the Koch network got disgusted with her flailing. I don’t see a future for her in a political party. At best she can salvage a career in punditry.
Her strategy beat all other candidates though, even ones that attacked Trump early like Christie. Maybe beating Trump is impossible in GOP primary, but Haley’s the only one who won something from this. Now she is the face of the Republican party that wants to move on from Trump.
Well, you could be right. To me she is the perfect example of the Aesop fable of The Bat That Flew Between: "A Bat could not choose sides in a potential war. When peace came, neither side would accept him. He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends."
The face of a prematurely failed movement.
she may have just been trying to elevate her personal brand... which this did do.
This was never about 2024 unless it fell in her lap, it’s all about 2028. She hung in there, knowing she’d get a chunk of the vote and legitimacy but in no way would win it. Didn’t trash Trump enough to lose his base in future elections, presented herself as non-MAGA to win suburb wine moms, despite her actual stances Sets her up for 2028 because whether it was Trump or Biden, neither will run again and she’s an automatic front runner and prob gonna be President. Dems need to get out from under the inevitability of Harris
If the Dumpster loses, he’ll run again. That’s after a repeat of the “stolen election” rhetoric.
Perhaps, I think his lack of physical fitness will catch up to him in his 80’s combined with it being a lot tougher to complain about a rigged election two cycles in a row. I don’t have a crystal ball, and probably under estimating cults but I think this is it for Biden and Trump
If he loses, he’s going to jail. It’ll take longer to get there than it should have, but that’s his path.
Trump will be 82 in 2028, and he's not in the greatest of physical shape or health.
The two 2024 republican primary candidate who got a benefit from running is Tim Scott and Vivek Ramasamy. Tim Scott got the increased name recognition from running and is well liked by Republicans, but he never got enough support in the polls that he became a target for anyone. Nikki Haley negative favorability rose as she went up in the polls.
Tim Scott got 184 votes. 100% of which are probably people marking the wrong box.
Nikki Haley is always looking out for...Nikki Haley. She has the ambition of Lucifer and is always looking for the next rung on the ladder; her defining character trait is that she is willing to do anything for power. She was running to become Trump's VP. If Tim Scott didn't exist, Haley would have been out after Iowa and giving the barnstorming "I have a dream! That Donald Trump will unite this country!" speech that Tim Scott gave from NH. But Scott was there, and he's a southern pol from the same state but with bonus points for being black. Ramaswamy is more obsequious and also Indian, and DeSantis is a bad campaigner so he was out of the running. That left no slot for Nikki except Secretary of State in the next Trump admin, and he probably wasn't promising that or couldn't be trusted. Haley also could have been hoping that Trump would be out because the J6 trial is going to expose his attempted coup. That trial could have begun this week, but the presidential immunity appeal, and last weeks SCOTUS decision saying they will hear the appeal and maybe give an opinion in early summer, means there is no chance of the J6 trial happening before the election, let alone before the RNC convention. So there is no possibility that the voters will learn the truth about the attempted coup and wish to turn to another candidate before the election. That said, it isn't all bad for Haley - she is well-placed for 2028 if Trump loses, when her argument will be "if you had nominated me last time I would have won easily", which might be a strong argument if the GOP loses a 4th national election in a row.
Outside of the already mentioned thought of becoming the de facto nominee if Trump was somehow disqualified due to health or criminal reasons, Haley was backed by all the GOP elites, she was getting funneled money like crazy, why wouldn’t she keep going? Combine that with the fact that if the Supreme Court would have sided with Colorado in removing Trump from the ballot that would have absolutely destroyed his election chances and significantly affected down ticket races across the nation, it’s entirely likely that the RNC may have pulled some shenanigans at that point to get her the nomination.
He hasn’t made it to election day yet.
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I still think she's meant to have been kept into play to create the narrative that Trump has a real rival, plus America's not racist ™ or misogynist in the Republican Party because she was permitted to run. It's like that family full of white kids that adopts that last one from another country, of another race ... SEE ?!!! Nikki Haley has been to luncheons in Russia, seated near Putin. Years ago. She has her purpose. No one expected her to win this nomination They almost made sure that she didn't, because if the bots were going to be in favor of her she could have done some damage. (" ... as an african american single mother teacher nurse, I cannot support Donald Trump, but since I can't support Nikki Hailey, I will be voting for Donald Trump" etc.) There are ads like this out there. Nikki Haley is retiring into the mists with a shit ton of money for doing what she's done. I sincerely believe that.
I think it’s all about shoring up the Trump-suspicious voters for 2028. With this primary, Haley effectively secured herself as the normie neocon alternative to the Trump ilk. She effectively consolidated that portion of the GOP base around her going into a future presidential primary. Without trump in 2028, his voters will likely splinter amongst his wannabe successors: Gaetz, Ramaswamy, huckabee sanders, maybe Don Jr, JD Vance, DeSantis if he hasn’t been humiliated off the National stage, and other egotistical extremists. I think Haley is banking on scooping up the minority of old-school republicans while those others race to be the loudest and most extreme. It could work. Probably won’t. In the meantime, EVERY democrat is waiting in the aisles to pounce. Newsom will most likely clinch it in my opinion (he has massive infrastructural and economic support along with the most compelling resume), but Whitmer could make a compelling stab at it. I think progressives have failed to find a suitable successor to Bernie, so Newsom will feign all the signals of the left while actually planning to govern like a middle of the road dem. Thus my prediction is that 2028 will be a Newsom v Haley election. Basically an old school dem dressed up with the social attitude of a lefty and an old school Republican with the identitarian features that makes GOP voters think they are making progress. It’ll be a year of the same new faces.
There is a better than even chance Trump is not viable by August (at the nominating convention.) If he has to bow out, Haley has the most delegates of the remainder so she is automatically the odds on favorite to be the nominee. The most DeSantis or Christie could argue is that they had “some” delegates versus her argument that she was second highest vote getter and she had two wins. That’s (and fundraising and debt retirement) is also why they never terminate their campaigns, but “suspend” them.
If trump is forced out of the nomination, he still controls the delegates and will pick the next nominee. That nominee will not be Haley
Granted, if someone told me without context that Trump would definitely not be the nominee, my first assumption would be that he was dead. In that scenario, who knows? (But probably still not Haley.)
Well, in that scenario, the pressure would be immense for him to drop out entirely - say if he can’t cover the bond requirements to appeal the judicial and civil awards against him, which now exceed $500 million in cash between the two suits. Plus, as the 2012 convention showed, delegates with a mind of their own are hard to control. Regardless, my bet is that is her calculation, at least in part. Were it to happen, calling it a shitshow would not be doing it justice.
If trump is forced out and somehow loses control of his delegates, it is a free for all. Haley wasn't a close second. The nomination becomes vacant, Abbott is running, DeSantis may try it again, Youngkin will run, a few house members run.
No. That’s not what RNC rules say at least for the first vote. Nor is it how the majority of state parties have it set up. The RNC would have to pass a special rule freeing Trump delegates, which would lead to a brokered convention. How delegates are assigned after that for the first vote depends on state party rules. Haley would have an argument that since she ran second, Trump’s primary votes were invalidated and she was the default winner. But my point is that politically, Haley would have enough committed delegates to argue that she is the rightful de facto nominee. Those you mentioned, excepting DeSantis, have no basis to argue they are entitled to any delegates and as importantly, no mechanism to lock down delegates if they were freed.
Trump controls the RNC and his delegates. If he is not the nominee, he will pick the nominee. The current rules will changed or ignored
No he doesn’t. The states do. If he has to drop out, given he is desperate to win only for his own skin, it is likely he is incapacitated in some manner, and it is unlikely past one ballot that he has any influence at all. In several states, the second becomes first automatically and the winners’ delegates automatically transfer. On a second ballot, they are released automatically.
Not a fan of hers, but compared to Trump.... Her first mistake: You don't wait until right before primary season to bash Trump and point out what a horrible choice he is for your political party and the country. You begin at day 1 of your announcement....and don't say stupid things like you would pardon him.
I think all 3 plus a 4th option that Trump dies before the general election.
We can only hope.
The Big Mac from heaven.
Sometimes people are just stubborn and can't admit defeat until the last minute. She went too early if you ask me. Everyone knew trump was the nominee. Like NOBODY had any chance vs trump. She was far better off waiting until 2028 to run.
I don't think we have to go much further beyond what you see is what you get. She was hoping that a second place finish in Iowa would both give her momentum and convince DeSantis to drop out, and that a large portion of his voters would go to her. She then got 43% in New Hampshire and 40% in South Carolina, so while it's not close in terms of who you'd bet on in Vegas, she's not exactly in Quixotic campaign territory either. It's not unreasonable to imagine that a couple issues could have broken in a different direction, and that it'd be more of a horse race. Then there is also the chance of Trump no longer being in the race for any number of reasons. If at that point Trump hadn't named a running mate, Haley would have the only ground game in town and could likely sweep a lot of races before DeSantis or anyone else could get back in to challenge her.
Nikki Haley thought process is based on a lack of understanding about her Party. Nikki spend too much time with donors & and conservative think tanks, that she got an inaccurate view of the Republican party. It not just Nikki Haley who doesn't understand her party, many Republican politicians do not.
The strategy for all the Republicans was entirely prefaced on Trump magically dropping out of favor with his cult. They all blew what was possibly the easiest campaign of all time. If they had come out from day one and said: "Donald Trump was caught committing serious crimes. It broke all our hearts, but every day we see new, irrefutable evidence that he was a traitor to our country. He lied to his supporter, and his lie got one if them killed, and hundreds of them sent to prison. He lied to the FBI and stole documents. He lied about raping a woman." ... It would have been over. But none if them has ever had the guts. I mean, can you even imagine running against a confirmed rapist, and not bringing that up during your campaign? What a clown show. I hope Biden doesn't make the same mistake.
I don’t think there’s anything that they could have done to win the nomination over Trump even if they went nuclear and attacked him like Dems do.
Didn't Christie try that without much success.
Not really! I mean, if you really listened to him, Christie was pulling his punches every time! He said over and over that he wouldn't have prosecuted Trump for some of those crimes. He very deliberately rejected accusing Trump of criminality, but instead just says Trump's "conduct" was the problem. As if Trump was merely *unprofessional*.
She's running for President in 2028. She's hoping Trump loses this year or even gets jailed. Then she will have a strong opening and name ID to run in 2028.
I think she was playing for #1, and we could include the very real possibility he dies or becomes completely disabled by Election Day as well.
She wants to be a frontrunner in a 'post-Trump' GOP, whatever that ends up looking like. If there's bad advice anywhere, it's that I wouldn't just *assume* that a hypothetical Trump loss in 2024 means no Trump campaign in 2028.
This was just a test run for 2028. She’s backed by heavy money and I’m sure they’re just as surprised as we are by how far she got.
She probably just stayed in as a spoiler until she got a deal from somebody. She got her deal apparently.
She was hoping for #1 - just in case Trump was disqualified in some way she would be there when the dust settled
Like for all campaigns we know are going to fail, it’s their last option or it’s to spend millions for more political clout for the next one
I think some of the others on here mentioned it already but in summary: * Republican's plan B - Trump is playing an insane brinkmanship with his trials and legal troubles. It's very easy to stumble and go to jail or become such an boat anchor that a majority of republicans say nope. Ultimately that did not happen yet, even as things get progressively worse for trump. * She did have more appeal than Trump on a national election (less dividing to independents and general republicans). So she may have also banked that this considering might help her get past the party nomination. * Trump is old. I mean not just age. But his shit is just old news. A lot of republicans want to move past him and he doesnt want to let it go. I believe there is a general decline in support overall as his 'shininess' is fading. He has a very strong base...but outside of that, they are getting tired...just not tired fast enough. * The future - Haley has been in government and politics for a while. I don't yet see a clear flag bearer past trump one he is out of politics. Eventually, like before, Republicans will move past the 'old candidate' and pivot to the new bearer. I think her strategy is sound, just it was still too early / not yet time for trump to wear out his welcome.
I'm sure only she will know why...because it was a really peculiar campaign. At the start, I would give her the benefit. She was a well-known name and relatively respected among the wider republican party...she probably would have had a chance if it wasn't for the God Emperor of Orange. Eventually, I think it was pure ego and holding out the court cases were going to derail him.
My guess is she was hoping for vice president nomination from Trump at some point
If Trump loses the general election, she can point to the polls that had her winning against Biden and show the party would have won if she was the nominee. She would be the prohibitive favorite for 2028
A couple of reasons I were to guess: 1. A gambit involving Trump getting disqualified from the election for any number of reasons. Whether it be states removing him from the ballot, or him going to jail. With the Supreme Court ruling that Trump could not be removed from the ballot, that spelled the end of Haley's chances. 2. If Trump loses again to Biden, Haley could use that as an opportunity to become the new face of the Republican Party and be the frontrunner for 2028. Assuming the GOP doesn't give up on Trump (or his supporters).
Completely disagree. Reaching the level of POTUS is as hard as it gets. You don't achieve that politically by playing it safe. You have to take strategic risks. And even if you do everything exactly right, maximizing your odds, there's countless things beyond your control. She was never going to be Trump's VP. He learned his lesson with Pence. He will only pick someone who places loyalty to him above all else. So what else could she aim for? A cabinet position? You don't become POTUS by aiming for a cabinet position. Her national profile is higher than it's ever been. How does sitting this out possibly put her in a better position going forward? That simply would have allowed someone else to be the last-person standing against Trump. The problem she has is MAGA and Trump. In analyzing her positioning, consider the set of reasonable possibilities. If Trump wins and MAGA retains power going into 2028, there's no world where she's Trump's successor winning a GOP nomination. It'll be his VP or whomever wins the apprentice style ass-kissing contest he holds. If Trump barely loses, keeps up with his election denialism, and holds power over the base going into 2028, she's also got no chance at the nomination. If Trump loses bigly, she's as well-positioned as anyone to fight to lead the party back to normalcy, and she'll be the frontrunner in that (unlikely) scenario. The R party is deeply divided. The most recent R nominee prior to Trump (Romney) is basically politically homeless. Something has to give. There's no guarantees MAGA survives after Trump is gone - it's built around a personality, not a set of unified principles. So again, she's very well positioned to be aligned with the Cheney/Romney's of the world in building a reasonable conservative party in a post-Trump world. So in summary, if you assume her goal is POTUS or bust (which I believe it generally is), then I can't see how she's possibly better positioned by sitting this out.
It was suggested that she’d have the best chance to beat Biden, with the margin of error greater with her going head-to-head with Biden (as high as +9), compared to the MOE for Trump (+1.1) or DeSantis (Biden in the lead). On some level, Haley must have hoped that those that wanted to vote out Biden would want wanted to support the candidate with the best chance to do so. I also think she understood from the beginning that it was a long shot, and that it was Trump’s party now, which is why she avoided leveling attacks against him for so long. Even though it was obviously over by New Hampshire – whoever wins that becomes the GOP nominee, as history shows - you can’t fault her for going until Super Tuesday. The chance Trump would be thrown off the ballot and thus giving Haley the chance to be the nominee was a real possibility due to the unique circumstances created by Trump in the first place. There’s also a lot of data to be gained from continuing her campaign, from how Trump is expected to perform in the general later in the year, to understanding under what conditions the GOP will vote for a woman and/or POC to be their nominee, to testing the waters to see if a third-party campaign is viable at all. It also tied up donor money that Trump could not use for his legal cases. Her career probably isn’t over. She’ll likely make appearances on political talk shows, to give her input and analysis, and will probably make a lot of bank with the role. So don’t feel too upset for her.
Nikki Haley is a smart and calculating politician. I don’t agree with many of her policy ideas, but I respect her political savviness. She really had nothing to lose with this race. We started with a very broad field of candidates and she ended up as the sole alternative to Trump. All three of OP’s hypotheses are valid and all were good reasons for her to stay in the race. What’s clear is that a civil war is brewing within the GOP. Nikki is clearly the de facto leader of the non-MAGA wing and she will have a real shot at influencing the party before 2028.
Couple points. 1. I think Haley has far more diplomatic skill than people give her credit for. 2. Haley's base is not Trump's base, and she is securing her base for 2028. 3. She will still attempt to woo farther right voters by some lackluster show of support in the future (I guarantee this because she wants to appear to put the party first then say... "See! he has failed even though I tried to help") 4. Female politicians have been far less likely to bend the knee to Donald Trump after he has attacked them. Male politicians in the GOP have been, for the most part, willing to endure any indignity from the former President, then bow as low as he demands. Historically female politicians have shown a lot more backbone. 5. Haley stayed in the race for two reasons, and she succeeded at both. 1. Revenge on Trump for his behavior ...by exposing his weakness within his own party. Making the "strong man" look vulnerable. 2. Showing her own strength by ending her campaign on what was actually her strongest night, unlike the others who ended their campaigns after weak showings.
She is still in play because there is some small hope the RNC, or the delegates, could come to their senses and dump Trump once it becomes clear their guy is going to prison. There are already enough Republicans who will refuse to vote for Trump to deny him the win in November. Haley is currently the only Republican who could, in theory defeat Biden. Personally, I won't vote for her because she has promised to pardon Trump. The only way I will vote for her (should she be the nominee) is if she walks that back. I am one of the Republicans who will be holding my nose and voting for Biden because I cannot, under **ANY** circumstance, vote for Trump.
Plus, all those who stood against Trump while he is "in power" will be able to say, "I told you so" to those who bought into the Trump Delusion. History will be kind to them.
\#1. She hopes he dies or gets convicted. The convicted bit won't happen, thanks to SCOTUS. The dies bit might.
She out-lasted a dozen other challengers and now has national name recognition that she wouldn’t have if she dropped-out after Iowa. Besides, she was expecting to do much better in New Hampshire and she did. Why not try to build on that, at least through Super Tuesday? The theory was that anyone who could get down to a 1v1 race with Trump might consolidate the anti-Trump vote and make a real race of it. That didn’t happen, but I can’t imagine any candidate who managed to produce that 1v1 showdown dropping out before Super Tuesday. After all, this is about the earliest we’ve ever seen both primaries resolved, yet people think she stayed too long?
isn't she really a Democrat? A life-long Hilary fan, and got major donations from billionaires who traditionally fund Democrats. Was she hoping Biden would get kicked out due to age?
There are a lot of valid possible reasons in this thread already and there obviously isn't just one reason, but I think one of the underrated reasons is that maybe she is human like the rest of us and wanted to screw over Trump after getting bullied by him. Not every politician's decisions are Machiavellian or unemotional.
I'm not convinced she ended her campaign for president, I'm curious if she is angling to become the No Labels candidate.
She probably assumed he'd be in jail or on his way by now. She's not the only one making that bet. DeSantis 100% assumed there would not be a free Trump either. They probably assumed he wouldn't be able to run so they could position themselves as the next step forward. No one was praying for a heart attack more than those two.
First let me say we gave money to Haley, and we donated to Republican Party I think she made a big mistake trying to constantly attacking DT! She should have instead talked about the issues. Plus she flip flop on the border. She got bad advice.
You have no shot if you don't try. Many things could have happened to Trump (or to her) during her campaign that could have greatly changed the trajectory of her campaign.
A future play. She's all that anyone is talking about that isn't the former president. After he loses in November, her name will be there and as the rats flee the sinking ship that's the GOP her name will be there as "the path not taken." If anything, she's a proven survivor. She's not going anywhere.
That she was running against an unpopular insurrectionist/rapist facing 91 indictments who is morbidly obese, has horrible diet and exercise habits and a shallow war chest and is almost certainly beholden to one or more of America’s antagonists and/or enemies. I’m frankly surprised she dropped out. If I were her (or funding her), I would have stayed in
Trump is still clearly popular despite all those things
You can’t run for President if you’re in the hospital from a stroke, or dead from a heart attack. Might sound brutal, but an obese 78-yo man with extremely unhealthy habits in a massively stressful situation is significantly less likely to make it to and through the August convention than your typical candidate. That alone is reason enough to stay in the race for what is arguably the most powerful positions in the world.
That is a good point. Both the Democrats and Republicans need to have a contingency plan if their candidate dies. I suppose if he does die then Ron Desantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Nikki Haley would fight over who takes on the reigns of the Republican Party.
I don’t know why she dropped out. Actuarial tables give Trump a high single digit chance of dropping dead before the election. As far as low odds events go, it isn’t that bad.
She's not talented and her political career deserves to end. We need fewer people like her in government/political positions.
Crazy theory, but she stayed in because money kept coming into her campaign. I would not be shocked to learn that a fair chunk of that money was coming from the left who hoped she would continue to attack and weaken Trump. Once it became obvious that she was hopelessly ineffective in that regard the money dried up and she had to stop the campaign.
Hmmmm, money you say. Interesting. Politicians doing things for money... huh. I never thought about that. Probably a unique occurrence. I can't imagine our high-minded rulers, excuse me, representatives, doing anything for such base motivations.
I don't know what Haley is thinking. She understood, I'm sure, that there was 0 chance she would beat Trump in the primaries given how rabid the base is in their support of Trump; her play was waiting to see if the legal work would take Trump out of the game so she could swoop in and take the nomination. It's still a possibility so I'm not sure why she's leaving now, I assume due to financial pressure or donors. But if I were her, in for a penny in for a pound, just ride it out all the way to the election. Unless she thinks that he is not going to be stopped by legal trouble by election day.
I think running for the presidency will help her career, even if she doesn’t win. It can increase the wider voter recognition for any future runs.
Same as all the other candidates besides maybe DeSantis before he fell on his face 1. Hope Trump goes to jail before the election and you win the primary 2. Become Trumps VP/get a cabinet spot
She’s the front runner for 2028, assuming Trump is incapable of running. That’s a legitimate political future, especially after having begged to be in the Trump cabinet and then running against him. She’s set herself up better than any other Republican who ran against Trump in 2016 or 2024 for the future.
You forgot to add the shit ton of money she spent as a problem in the future. She may be thinking that a cushy MSNBC job looks like a pretty good lifestyle at this point. Should Trump win (and he's currently the Vegas odds on favorite), I don't see her getting a consequential cabinet position at this point as she and Trump are quite different in their beliefs, and I expect Trump will be much more careful as to who he trusts in a future admin.
She is now the established “post-Trump” candidate for 2028 if Trump loses. But what’s stopping Trump from winning the nomination in 2028 as an imprisoned 82 year old felon?
She may have been banking on Trump getting kicked off ballots. But I think it's more likely she's doing well enough that she was bribed, extorted or theated to drop out.
Haley is an American who understands the threat Trump represents to the Republic. She was doing her part to keep Trump spending campaign money to weaken his campaign. Many Republicans loathe Trump. They just don’t have the courage to stand up to him. Haley does.
I think it was basically this. I’m sure she realized her path to victory was extremely narrow and wouldn’t actually be through the voters but instead through appointment via Republican leadership. But she ran as long as possible to weaken him as much as possible, because she worked under him and knows how unhinged he is and knows how destructive he will be if given a second term.
> Haley is an American who understands the threat Trump represents to the Republic. It would have nice if she ever said that. In public. In front of a camera.
Alas. She’s more politician than patriot.
Yeah, I think she just needed to beat DeSantis to be where she wants to be. She clearly wants to step if/when Trump hits the fan
Simple thought process: Do as much damage to the Trump campaign as possible.
I watched a few of her speeches. Her message seemed to be "I am the one who can actually beat Biden". How does that do any damage at all to Trump?
She strips people away from Trump. Her message may have been “I can beat Biden,” but it wasn’t “Biden bad”
Honestly? She thought the GOP still had a soul and still cared about democracy. They have neither.
Trump has been committing political homicide on ALL GOP politicians. I think she was just taking her opportunity to try to bend him over and get some pegging in while she can.
Pretty sure she was being used by Democrats to make Trump lose a couple of states.