Haley won’t win. But it makes (some) sense for her to stay in.
It’s obvious why Haley would abandon her presidential bid now.
She’s all but certain to lose. Just ask her: she can’t identify a state where she’s likely to beat Trump.
She risks being seen as either a nuisance or an impediment to Trump — a Dean Phillips-style afterthought or a serious threat to the GOP’s hopes of ousting Biden — neither of which makes her stronger in the future.
And she could incur the wrath of Trump and his base in a way that permanently damages her standing.
The upsides of continuing to campaign may be less clear, but they are just as present.
The conventional wisdom is that Haley wants to be viewed as the clear alternative if an intervention — divine or criminal — prevents Trump from carrying the GOP flag in November. There’s a lot of Disney-level wish-upon-a-star thinking baked into that conventional wisdom, most of it conjured by the anti-Trump establishment types who have hated him since he first appeared on the electoral scene.
But there are two related rationales that make a lot more sense.
First, there’s a long modern history of runners-up in one Republican primary winning the nomination the next time it’s available: in the last half century, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney moved up from second fiddle to first. There’s even some precedent for participation-trophy winners forcing their way onto the ticket — think Bush in 1980 — though Trump’s process for picking a No. 2 is anyone’s guess.
More broadly, Haley is building a network of donors and voters every day.
Whatever she wants to do in the future — whether it’s run in 2028 or simply have influence in politics — she is expanding her footprint. Her platform is higher, and it reaches a wider audience, because she is in the race. After all, who would have predicted that the candidate of Americans for Prosperity would also appear on Charlamagne tha God’s Breakfast Club and Saturday Night Live in the span of a week?
That network-building is a major reason candidates tend to run until they don’t have enough money to put gas in the campaign bus.
Haley’s calculations may change if she loses her home state of South Carolina later this month. But for now, she has enough incentive — and cash — to stay in the race.
So, she keeps on running.
Why Trump and Haley aren't appearing on the same ballot in Nevada
Nevada is typically a major, hard-fought stop on the path to the Republican presidential nomination — except this year, the fight is off.
Nevada Republicans are holding caucuses today, which will be used to allocate delegates to the national convention. Trump is running virtually unopposed after Haley didn’t put her name on the caucus ballot.
Instead, she participated in Tuesday’s state-run primary, which is mandated under state law but had no delegates at stake. In a stinging rebuke, more people chose to vote for “none of these candidates” than for Haley, even though she was the only candidate on the ballot.
So, why the split?
Amid the national Democratic Party’s attempts to reorganize the presidential nominating calendar after the 2020 election, Nevada enacted a law in 2021 that required the state to hold “a presidential preference primary” if multiple candidates file. The primary must be held the first Tuesday of February and be run by the state.
The law, which was passed by a Democratic-controlled Legislature and signed by the then-Democratic governor, was in part an attempt to secure the state’s spot at the front of the 2024 presidential nominating calendar. And it came as Democrats were looking to move away from caucuses like those both parties had long used in Nevada, de-emphasizing those contests in favor of higher-turnout primaries.
But the state GOP pushed back and is holding caucuses. From the point of view of the national Republican Party, that is the only recognized contest for the purpose of awarding delegates.
For the GOP, 26 delegates are at stake, a bit more than 1% of the total delegates up for grabs nationally. The at-large and congressional district delegates are awarded proportionally.
Democrat holds a slim lead in the special election for George Santos' former seat
A Newsday/Siena College poll released today found that former Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, leads Republican Mazi Melesa Pilip by four percentage points in a special election in New York’s 3rd Congressional District, which was previously represented by ousted GOP Rep. George Santos.
In a head-to-head between Suozzi and Pilip, 48% of likely voters said they would vote for Suozzi and 44% said they would vote for Pilip. Seven percent said they don’t know who they’ll vote for. Suozzi's lead is within the poll's margin of error.
Pilip and Suozzi are vying to replace Santos in a special election taking place on Tuesday, Feb. 13, where immigration and the border has become a focal point.
The survey also showed that 47% of voters said they have a favorable view of Suozzi, while 45% of likely voters said they have an unfavorable view of him.
Meanwhile, 41% of voters said they have a favorable view of Pilip, while 43% have an unfavorable view of her.
Forty-nine percent of voters said Pilip would do a better job handling the influx of migrants into the U.S., while 40% of voters said Suozzi would do a better job handling this issue.
In the district, Trump has a slight lead over Biden in a hypothetical general election matchup, with 47% of those surveyed saying they would vote for Trump and 42% saying they would vote for Biden.
This poll was conducted from Feb. 3 to Feb. 6 among 694 likely voters in New York’s 3rd District. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
Jockeying begins to replace Ronna McDaniel at the RNC
LAS VEGAS — As Ronna McDaniel considers whether to step down from as chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Drew McKissick — who is her co-chair, as well as the chair of the South Carolina GOP — is actively placing phone calls to other RNC members about replacing her if she resigns.
Three sources familiar with his calls said he is lobbying for support and gauging interest from the RNC’s body of 168 members responsible for formally selecting the party chair.
If McDaniel resigns, “he certainly wants to be the next chair,” said an ally of McKissick, Robin Armstrong, the RNC committeeman from Texas. “He is the chair of the South Carolina party. He’s currently the co-chair [of the RNC]. I think it’d naturally be the next thing for him to step up as chair of the RNC.”
One of the sources said McKissick spoke with Trump this week about the prospect of becoming chair. The Trump campaign did not reply to a request for comment.