Silver linings for Nikki Haley in her decisive loss to Donald Trump in South Carolina were few and far between. Her losing margin in her home state (currently projected as 20 points — 60 percent for Trump, 40 percent for Haley) could have been worse; she was trailing by over 30 points pretty regularly a month ago, and was down 23 points in the final RealClearPolitics polling average. She might pick up a few delegates in the Charleston area before the night is out. And she apparently still has some credit in the donor world or did until this evening: she was able to massively outspend Trump in South Carolina ($15 million to $900 thousand by one estimate).
On the other hand, she did not show any kind of momentum on her home turf; her 11 point loss in New Hampshire looks like a paradise lost now. Her much-discussed strategy of luring huge numbers of independents and even Democrats to cross over and give her a hand to stop Trump did not succeed; exit polls showed that only 31 percent of South Carolina primary voters were not self-identified Republicans; only 21 percent considered themselves moderate or liberal. Trump won college educated as well as non-college-educated voters, and broke even with non-evangelical voters while winning evangelicals by a 3-to-1 margin.
Perhaps the most telling exit poll finding was that while 72 percent of primary voters adjudged Trump as having the physical and mental capacity to serve as president, only 60 percent said the same of Haley. Since she had campaigned heavily of late on the idea that neither Trump nor Biden was up to the job, this was quite the repudiation of her rationale for candidacy. Haley also claimed a big electability advantage over the former president, but South Carolina Republicans deemed her far less formidable against Biden (55 percent said they thought she’d beat the incumbent; 88 percent said that of Trump). We’re left to wonder whether her lack of traction in the state she governed for six years is a tribute to Trump’s dominance of this conservative electorate, or Haley’s failure to keep fences mended at home.
Trump gave his victory speech right after the polls closed (when he had already been declared the winner by major news outlets, despite Haley’s relatively good performance in the early votes that were counted first), and it was mostly standard Trumpian bluster without a lot of focus on the loser. He had to be pleased; no candidate in either party has won the first three primaries and lost the nomination, and his massive lead in upcoming primaries (he led her by 60 points in the latest poll for Michigan, the next state to vote on February 27) leaves little doubt about his nomination; he’ll very likely mathematically clinch it in mid-March.
Haley’s concession speech had no drama; she had already announced she’d stay in the race no matter what happened in South Carolina. She has no chance of winning the GOP nomination even if Trump is somehow forced to drop out; a MAGA-dominated convention would turn to almost anyone else now that Haley is personally attacking the front-runner regularly. But so long as she can continue to raise money, she has no bridges left to burn, so why not keep running? (Her main super PAC just announced $500,000 on digital ads in Michigan for the primary on Tuesday.) We’ll see how long she can hang on, but there’s no real hope in sight for Nikki Haley.
