The Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primary have come and gone. Now, the race is down to former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
Trump won both races handily, prompting entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to drop out of the race.
Haley, who experienced a surge in the polls, is the last person standing between Trump and the GOP nomination. But given the results in both states and national polling, she doesn’t stand much of a chance of defeating the former president.
So, why is Haley bothering to stay in the race?
Earlier, I predicted that Haley would drop out in the week leading up to South Carolina’s primaries, or just after they are held. I still hold to that prediction. But I don’t see much of a reason for Haley to remain in the race given that her popularity is nowhere near as strong as Trump’s.
While Haley’s chances of securing the nomination are anything but strong, there is a scenario under which she could squeak by, even if it’s a long shot.
I came across an article by Joan Walsh, a national affairs correspondent for The Nation, in which she suggested that Haley is hoping against hope that at least one of the charges against Trump will bear fruit in the form of a conviction – preferably one that involves jail time.
Haley came closer in New Hampshire than the most damning projections suggested she would, and thus she didn’t drop out. But I go back to Jolly’s point: Anti-Trump Republicans need somebody in there, in case he’s convicted (absolutely likely, but unlikely before the convention). As Haley told the Fox and Friends hosts: “I don’t care how much y’all want to coronate Donald Trump. At the end of the day, that’s not what Americans want. Americans want a choice.”
While New Hampshire would have seemed to give Donald Trump a decisive victory, she didn’t agree. It now seems like she maybe came within 10 points of beating Trump, and that is going to be considered a victory here. “We got close to half of the vote!” Haley exclaimed in her semi-victory speech in Concord. “And we keep moving up!”
There are some indications that a conviction could hurt Trump – especially in the general election. A Harvard CAPS-Harris poll revealed that the Jan. 6 charges could be especially damaging to the former president if he is convicted.
The Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found Trump leading President Biden in a hypothetical general election match-up by seven points. But Biden leads Trump by four points, 52 percent to 48 percent, if the former president is convicted of the charges he faces related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
Convictions in the other cases against Trump would tighten the race, but Trump still leads Biden among respondents. The poll found Trump would still lead Biden by six points if he is convicted in the case of his alleged mishandling of classified and sensitive documents, and he would lead by two points if convicted in the case over his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
Of course, it is also worth mentioning that a conviction might not be the only catastrophe that could seriously derail his campaign. Over the past year, Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans have been engaged in a campaign to remove Trump’s name from the ballot in several states using the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court is set to rule on this effort early in February. If the Justices rule in favor of Colorado’s attempt to prevent voters from supporting Trump, it could open the door for more successful challenges – especially in important swing states. With Trump unable to win these electoral votes, Haley could convince enough voters to support her by pointing out that Trump has little to no chance of winning if his name is removed from the ballot in enough states.
These are the only pathways to victory that I can see for a Republican candidate who is not named Donald J. Trump. It seems likely that Haley is waiting to see if one, or both, of these scenarios will materialize before finally deciding to call it quits.
However, even if either of these outcomes happen, it still does not guarantee that Republican voters will rethink their support for Trump. Chances are, they will still nominate him--with or without criminal convictions.
