When Nikki Haley lost by a relatively narrow (11-point) margin to Donald Trump in New Hampshire last month, the narrative her campaign was putting out there was that she would use that showing as a springboard to a breakthrough in her home state of South Carolina on February 24.
If evidence from the polls means anything, Haley is much more likely to break down than to break through in the Palmetto State. Nine days before the primary with early voting already underway, Haley is trailing Trump by 33 points (he’s at 64 percent, she’s at 31 percent) in the RealClearPolitics polling averages for South Carolina. There is no discernible trend in her favor. And as likely voter polls replace registered voter polls, the fantasy that there is a big pool of independent and Democratic voters ready to invade the open GOP primary and save Haley’s bacon is being exploded. Three February LV surveys have Trump leading by 45 points (Florida Atlantic University/Mainstreet Research), 35 points (CBS News), and 36 points (Winthrop). The CBS and Winthrop polls show Trump leading among self-identified independents modestly and among self-identified Republicans massively.
The expectations for Haley in South Carolina are so low (her onetime mentor and Trump foe Mark Sanford told Politico it would take “a meteor strike” for her to win) that exceeding them is possible. But the path for her post–South Carolina looks even more formidable. The only other February primary (it’s on February 24, and only controls a portion of the delegates for that state) is in Michigan, and the only public poll (from Morning Consult) since it became a two-race race shows Trump leading 79 percent to Haley’s 19 percent. The March primaries look like an unmitigated bloodbath for the former South Carolina governor. In the RCP national polling averages, Trump’s lead over Haley keeps rising and is now up to 56 points (74 percent to 19 percent).
Beyond the primaries, as her criticisms of Trump grow sharper and more personal (she is now regularly challenging his fitness to serve as president), the far-fetched idea that Haley could snag the nomination as a plan B alternative to Trump, if he is felled by a jury or an act of God, looks even more preposterous. MAGA-world will look far and wide to overlook Nikki Haley until she undergoes the sort of humiliation and rehabilitation that eventually reconciled 2016 Trump rivals Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz to the former president, well down the road.
Nikki Haley is 52, which is relatively young at a time when her party is sending a late-septuagenarian up against the octogenarian incumbent. So there’s no telling what the future holds for her. But for 2024, the end is near.
