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As expected, Donald Trump won the South Carolina Republican primary by a wide margin. As of this writing, the tally has Trump at 59.8 percent and Nikki Haley, governor of the state from 2011 to 2017, at 39.5 percent.
But Haley was never likely to win this state or the Republican nomination. She and her staff may not want to see her campaign more as a protest against Trump than as a viable big for the nomination, but that’s what it is — and there’s nothing wrong with that.
There are plenty of Republicans who want an alternative to Trump — 49 percent of those who showed up for the GOP Iowa caucuses, a bit more than 45 percent in the New Hampshire primary. They’re not a majority, but they’re a large enough minority that they can’t be ignored or dismissed.
Early in 2023, Donald Trump declared, “I am your retribution,” and a spirit of nasty vindictiveness has permeated his campaign this cycle. A few days ago, NBC reported that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who dropped out of the Republican nomination race after Iowa, offered the utterly mundane observation that he didn’t think Trump should play “identity politics” when picking a running mate. Chris LaCivita, a top Trump aide, sneered back on social media, “chicken fingers and pudding cups is what you will be remembered for you sad little man.”
DeSantis quit the race and endorsed Trump a month ago, but it doesn’t matter. Trump doesn’t care about unifying the party or winning over his past rivals, and neither does his team.
Seething and nasty even in victory, the Trump team has the attitude that now that they’ve won a majority in the first few GOP contests, it’s time for Haley and everyone else in the party to kneel in acquiescence. Trump wants to make his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, the new Republican National Committee chair, and she recently said she thinks Republican voters would support having the political organization pay the former president’s ballooning legal fees.
Haley is the candidate for all those Republicans who think the RNC should spend its money on, you know, electing Republicans.
When contemplating the poisonous-even-in-victory Trump campaign, I sometimes think of the former “The Apprentice” contestant and Trump campaign surrogate Omarosa Manigault. In September 2016, she exulted: “Every critic, every detractor will have to bow down to President Trump. It’s everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, who ever disagreed, who ever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.”
After less than a year of working in the Trump White House, the same Omarosa Manigault was singing a dramatically different tune in December 2017: ”As the only African-American woman in this White House, as a senior staff and assistant to the president, I have seen things that have made me uncomfortable, that have upset me, that have affected me deeply and emotionally, that has affected my community and my people.” If only someone could have warned her that Donald Trump might be an abrasive, spiteful, raging personality with less than perfect sensitivity to African Americans.
The Haley campaign loves to talk about her strength in a general election matchup against Joe Biden, and sometimes the numbers are eye-popping. The latest Marquette Law School Poll national survey had 58 percent of registered voters supporting her and 42 percent supporting Biden. (The same survey showed Trump ahead of Biden among registered voters, 51 percent to 49 percent.) Even if Haley’s lead were half that 16-point margin, she would win in a landslide and probably have considerable coattails down-ticket.
Donald Trump has won just a single general election in his life, the 2016 presidential contest. His diehard fanbase is convinced he discovered a surefire style for winning nationally, and the 2020 election was stolen from him.
To Haley and many of her supporters, Donald Trump is just a guy who repels at least as many voters as he attracts, and who got lucky with a uniquely unpopular opponent in 2016.
In the general election, one of two things will happen. Either Trump will win 270 electoral votes, or he will fall short for a second time to Biden, at a time when even most Democrats see the incumbent as too old to run again. If Biden manages to prevail next fall, Haley and her fans will be able to say to Trump and his MAGA crowd, “See, we warned you.” There’s no downside for Haley to keep sounding that alarm in the coming weeks.
Now Nikki Haley is running a protest campaign, and that’s just fine
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25.02.2024
Sign upAs expected, Donald Trump won the South Carolina Republican primary by a wide margin. As of this writing, the tally has Trump at 59.8 percent and Nikki Haley, governor of the state from 2011 to 2017, at 39.5 percent.
But Haley was never likely to win this state or the Republican nomination. She and her staff may not want to see her campaign more as a protest against Trump than as a viable big for the nomination, but that’s what it is — and there’s nothing wrong with that.
There are plenty of Republicans who want an alternative to Trump — 49 percent of those who showed up for the GOP Iowa caucuses, a bit more than 45 percent in the New Hampshire primary. They’re not a majority, but they’re a large enough minority that they can’t be ignored or dismissed.
Early in 2023, Donald Trump declared, “I am your retribution,” and a spirit of nasty vindictiveness has permeated his campaign this cycle. A few days ago, NBC reported that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who dropped out of the Republican nomination........
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