Tag: nikki haley
Haley Is Out, But Deep Wound In Republican Party Remains Unhealed

Haley Is Out, But Deep Wound In Republican Party Remains Unhealed

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley suspended her campaign on Wednesday, leaving Donald Trump as the last Republican presidential candidate standing. Again.

But as she announced the end of the campaign, Haley did not endorse Trump. “I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee,” said Haley. Then she cited former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in saying, “Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.”

“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him,” she continued. “And I hope he does that.”

While her departure may mean that Trump can coast through the remaining primaries, it certainly doesn’t mean that the open wound in the Republican Party is going to heal.

A better understanding of how the Haley campaign feels about Trump and Trump supporters might be gleaned from this exchange between Haley’s communications director, Nachama Soloveichik, and Trump supporter Kari Lake, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in Arizona’s Senate race.

Haley’s whole primary campaign was based on the knowledge of the subset of Republican voters who say they won’t vote for Trump in November. Even in Trump’s wins on Super Tuesday, Haley picked up 23 percent of Republican votes in North Carolina, 29 percent in Minnesota, and 35 percent in Virginia, with 95 percent or more of the total vote reported in each state. Those are all states that Trump desperately needs to keep in his win column.

Even in deep-red states like Tennessee and Arkansas, Trump is walking away with less than 80 percent of the vote. That doesn’t mean these states are likely to swing to President Joe Biden in November, but it is a good signal that a significant portion of the GOP is unwilling to hold their nose and go MAGA. It’s fair to read much of the vote Haley has received not as showing their love for the ex-governor, but as showing their distrust of the party’s authoritarian leader.

“I don’t know. I did not vote for Biden the last time,” said one former Republican who bolted from the party in the last year. “I don’t know that I could do it this time. But I don’t know if I could vote for Trump.”

The schism goes both ways. As Daily Kos’ Kerry Eleveld reported on Tuesday, Trump is engaged in a purge of the Republican Party. He has declared that moderate Republicans are no longer welcome and that Haley supporters are “permanently barred” from joining the MAGA elite.

With Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump set to empty the party’s remaining funds into Trump’s account, and Trump making it clear that there is no party outside of MAGA, those voters who have voted against Trump in the primaries may find there’s no home for them remaining in the Republican Party. Though they may have a home elsewhere.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell may have managed a half-hearted endorsement, but former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney can’t bring himself to go even that far.

“I think we agree that we have looked at his behavior, and his behavior suggests that this is a person who will impose his will if he can, on the judicial system[,] on the legislative branch, and on the entire nation,” Romney said on “Meet the Press” in December.

Meanwhile, Trump says the Republican Party is getting rid of the Romneys. “We want to get Romneys and those out,” Trump told the crowd at a Virginia rally recently. Haley responded with a statement that “Trump is actively rejecting people from the Republican Party — a losing strategy in November and a recipe for extinction in the long run.”

We can only hope.

For at least two decades, the Republican Party has become increasingly hostile to anyone who didn’t hold to a very specific set of conservative beliefs. That requirement already cost Republicans the moderates and liberals who used to exist in their party.

The entry of Trump has upended the entire Republican platform, replacing it with the One Commandment: Obey Trump.

The party going to the polls in November is not McConnell’s party, or Romney’s party, or anything that would be recognized by any Republican candidate going back to Abraham Lincoln. It’s a classical authoritarian party, devoted to the rule of just one man—the one who says he’d beat Lincoln even if the 16th president teamed up with George Washington.

There’s no doubt that Trump’s cultish followers are enthusiastic to see their golden calf perched back on his altar, and Republican dissidents may wander home before November. But right now, the Republican Party appears to be split between those who want to see democracy only weakened and those who want to see it completely stripped away.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Haley Suspending Presidential Campaign, Won't Endorse Trump Yet

Haley Suspending Presidential Campaign, Won't Endorse Trump Yet

CHARLESTON, South Carolina, March 6 (Reuters) - Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley will suspend her presidential campaign on Wednesday, according to a source familiar with her plans, ensuring that Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination and once again face Democratic President Joe Biden in November's election.

Haley will give a speech at 10 AM ET to address her future in the race, the source said, but she will not make an endorsement at that time. She will urge Trump to try to win the backing of her supporters, which include a significant chunk of moderate Republicans and independent voters, the source added.

Haley's decision to suspend her campaign comes a day after Super Tuesday, opens new tab, when Trump beat her soundly in 14 of the 15 Republican nominating contests.

Haley lasted longer than any other Republican challenger to Trump but never posed a serious threat to the former president, whose iron grip on the party's base remains firm despite his multiple criminal indictments.

The rematch between Trump, 77, and Biden, 81 - the first repeat U.S. presidential contest since 1956 - is one that few Americans want. Opinion polls show both Biden and Trump have low approval ratings among voters.

The election promises to be deeply divisive in a country already riven by political polarization. Biden has cast Trump as an existential danger to democratic principles, while Trump has sought to re-litigate his false claims that he won in 2020.

Haley, 52, had drawn support from deep-pocketed donors intent on stopping Trump from winning a third consecutive Republican presidential nomination, particularly after she notched a series of strong performances at debates that Trump opted to skip.

She ultimately failed to pry loose enough conservative voters in the face of Trump's dominance.

But her stronger showing among moderate Republicans and independents - she won unaffiliated voters by a wide margin in New Hampshire and notched almost 40% of the vote in South Carolina - highlighted how Trump's scorched-earth style of politics could make him vulnerable in the Nov. 5 election.

On March 3, she won the Washington, D.C., Republican primary with 62.9% of the vote, versus 33.2% for Trump. On Tuesday, her only win came in Vermont, a small, deeply Democratic state.

Biden has his own baggage, including widespread concern about his age. Three-quarters of respondents in a February Reuters/Ipsos poll said he was too old to work in government, after already serving as the oldest U.S. president in history.

About half of respondents said the same about Trump.

Key Issues In 2024 Campaign

As in 2020, the race is likely to come down to a handful of swing states, thanks to the winner-take-all, state-by-state Electoral College system that determines the presidential election. Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are all expected to be closely contested in November.

The central issues of the campaign have already come into focus. Despite low unemployment, a red-hot stock market and easing inflation, voters have voiced dissatisfaction with Biden's economic performance.

Biden's other major weakness is the state of the U.S.-Mexico border, where a surge of migrants overwhelmed the system after Biden eased some Trump-era policies. Trump's hawkish stance on immigration - including a promise to initiate the largest deportation effort in history - is at the core of his campaign, just as it was in 2016.

Voters expect Trump would do a better job on both the economy and immigration, according to opinion polls.

Republican lawmakers, egged on by Trump, rejected a bipartisan immigration enforcement bill in February, giving Biden an opportunity to argue that Republicans are more interested in preserving the southern border as a problem rather than finding a solution.

Democrats are also optimistic that voter sentiment on the economy will shift in Biden's favor if economic trends go on rising throughout 2024.

Trump may be dogged by his myriad criminal charges throughout the year, though the schedule of his trials remains unclear. The federal case charging him with trying to overturn the 2020 election, perhaps the weightiest he faces, has been paused while Trump pursues a long-shot argument that he is immune from prosecution.

While most Republicans view his indictments as politically motivated, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, about a quarter of Republicans and half of independents say they won't support him if he is convicted of a crime before the election.

Biden has argued that Trump poses a threat to democracy, citing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters seeking to reverse Biden's 2020 victory.

Abortion, too, will play a crucial role after the nine-member U.S. Supreme Court, buoyed by three Trump appointees, eliminated a nationwide right to terminate pregnancies in 2022. The subject has become a political liability for Republicans, helping Democrats over-perform expectations in the 2022 midterm elections.

Abortion rights advocates have launched efforts to put the issue before voters in several states, including the battleground of Arizona.

Haley Thwarted

Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, had been among the first Republican contenders to enter the race in February 2023, but she was largely an afterthought until garnering attention for her standout debate performances later in the year.

She put her foreign policy expertise at the center of her campaign, adopting hawkish stances toward China and Russia and forcefully advocating for continued aid to Ukraine, a stance that put her at odds with the more isolationist Trump.

But she was reluctant to completely disavow her former boss - she served as Trump's U.N. ambassador - despite his four indictments and two impeachments. Trump showed no such reticence, frequently insulting her intelligence and Indian heritage.

Only in the last months of her campaign did Haley begin to forcefully hit back at Trump, questioning his mental acuity, calling him a liar and saying he was too afraid to debate her. In the final weeks of the campaign, she became the standard-bearer for the anti-Trump wing of the party, a dramatic evolution for someone who just months earlier praised the former president in her stump speeches.

Still, she said she would pardon Trump if he were convicted in any of the criminal cases he faces, a position she has never abandoned.

Reporting by Gram Slattery and Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by Jyoti Narayan and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Colleen Jenkins and Lisa Shumaker

After Crushing Defeat In Her Home State, What's Next For Nikki Haley?

After Crushing Defeat In Her Home State, What's Next For Nikki Haley?

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley got clobbered by Donald Trump Saturday in her home state of South Carolina, just as everyone predicted.

Haley's candidacy has already lasted longer than most election analysts predicted and certainly longer than Trump would like. Here's a look at what comes next.

1. Does Haley have a path to winning the nomination?

No. There's no world in which Haley manages to match, much less surpass, Trump's delegate count given the makeup of today's Republican Party.

Even in the event of Trump choking on the proverbial cheeseburger, Haley would face incredibly steep odds in brokering a convention deal among a bunch of delegates whose worship of Trump is complete and total. Such a convention showdown would be an awesome spectacle, but those delegates would almost surely vote for someone in Trump's mold, or maybe even anointed by him. That person will not be Haley.

2. Why is Haley still running?

It seems increasingly clear, based on the sharpness of her attacks on Trump, that Haley is trying to build a brand for the future, perhaps including a 2028 presidential bid. If Trump loses, Haley can say, “I told you so.” And at a spry 52 years of age, she can start laying the groundwork for her next political act, whether it's as part of the Republican Party or some other party that arises out of the GOP's wreckage.

3. Does Haley have a better shot on Super Tuesday than she did in South Carolina?

Yes. In spite of Haley's experience serving as governor of South Carolina, it remains a deeply conservative state with a relatively low level of college-educated voters. Haley's advisers have noted that 11 of the 16 contests taking place on Super Tuesday will be open or semi-open primaries that will inevitably include more voters receptive to Haley's insurgent pitch. The electorate in several of those states also boasts a greater concentration of the college-educated voters who have fueled Haley's campaign thus far. States that include some type of open primary coupled with a highly educated electorate, such as Massachusetts and Virginia, will be Haley’s sweet spot. She may not win them, but she will likely fare better there than in the Palmetto State.

4. Any chance Haley will be Trump's running mate?

Highly doubtful. Trump wants a running mate who will lie like a rug for him and trample the Constitution if that's what it takes to keep him in power. He doesn't want another Mike Pence fiasco. Plenty of malleable candidates have already stepped forward to demonstrate their bootlicking cred, including House Republicans' number three, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, and former 2024 hopeful-turned-Trump backer Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.

5. Will Haley eventually fall in line on Trump?

Perhaps. But with each passing day, Haley's attacks on Trump get more pointed and trenchant, making it harder for her to walk that plank when she calls it quits.

During this week’s press conference on the state of the race, Haley said of Trump, "I feel no need to kiss the ring. I have no fear of Trump’s retribution. I’m not looking for anything from him."

If Haley is really building a brand for the future, she might think twice before endorsing a man she has repeatedly called "unstable and unhinged." In fact, Haley has finally hit her messaging stride because she sounds authentic, as if she is being true to herself and her own beliefs rather than hedging her bets in a party where she no longer belongs.

So it's just possible, if not exactly probable, that Haley declines to endorse Trump when she inevitably ends her bid.

If Trump wins the general election, however, Haley could very likely come crawling back in search of an administration position. There's nothing Trump relishes more than a contrite convert.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Donald Trump

You'll Love Trump's Perfect Excuse For Mixing Up Pelosi And Haley

Donald Trump held a rally on Wednesday in North Charleston, South Carolina, in the run-up to the state’s Republican primary. Trump decided to address one of his many recent forgetful moments, when he confused his primary opponent Nikki Haley with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, saying Haley was in charge of security on January 6, 2021.

When I interpose, because I'm not a Nikki fan and I'm not a Pelosi fan. And when I purposely interpose names, they said, ‘He didn't know Pelosi from Nikki, from Tricky Nikki, Tricky Dickie. He didn't know.’ I interpose and they make a big deal out of it. I said no, no. I think they both stink, they have something in common, they both stink.

Let me interpose myself here, between Trump and the actual definition of the word “interpose.” What would the betting line be that Trump vaguely remembered the word “interchange” and the word “transpose,” but then was too afraid to mutter “trans,” and thought he created a portmanteau?

Nothing says “speculation about my cognitive abilities and forgetfulness in recent months is totally not bothering me” like blathering to an audience while accidentally transposing words to prove it doesn’t bother you.

Trump wants everyone to forget that he personally picked former South Carolina Gov. Haley to be his United Nations ambassador. That’s who he mistakenly named and blamed as Speaker of the House for the Capitol insurrection.

Other people and things Trump has recently interposed:

  • Joe Biden and Barack Obama
  • Ex-wife Marla Maples and E. Jean Carroll (who accused him of rape)
  • World War II and World War III
  • North Korea and China
  • Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
  • Jeb Bush and George W. Bush

Trump also threw water on any hope that he might choose Haley as a running mate, saying, “When I make a statement like that about Nikki, that means she will never be running for vice president.”

Here’s a clip of Donald “interposing” the two women, whose only similarity is a willingness to challenge his narcissism.

Republicans demanded border security, worked on a compromise deal with Democrats, and now want to blow the whole thing up. Biden is promising to remind Americans every day that the Republican Party is at fault for the lack of solutions to the problems they claim are most important.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.