- Unlikely to win in South Carolina, Nikki Haley set a benchmark for herself: higher than 43%.
- That’s how a lot of the vote she received in New Hampshire, her greatest state up to now.
- But she did not do even that, election outcomes present.
It’s been clear for weeks that Nikki Haley was going to lose her house state.
Facing that grim actuality — and questions over how she might proceed her quixotic problem of former President Donald Trump after that occurred — Haley set a decrease benchmark for herself in South Carolina, the state the place she served as governor for 8 years.
“I think I need to do better than I did in New Hampshire,” Haley stated on Meet The Press on January 28. “I need to show that I’m building momentum.”
“Does that have to be a win? I don’t think that necessarily has to be a win,” she continued. “But it certainly has to be better than what I did in New Hampshire, and it certainly has to be close.”
Haley received 43.2% of the vote in New Hampshire, her greatest outcome up to now. She later misplaced the Nevada major — the place she was the one candidate on the poll — to “none of these candidates” in an embarrassing rebuke.
And on Saturday, Haley did not exceed the 43.2% benchmark that she’d set for herself.
Nonetheless, Haley has made clear that she’s not dropping out, pointing to a slew of 21 primaries within the 10 days after South Carolina’s major.
“I refuse to quit. South Carolina will vote on Saturday. But on Sunday, I’ll still be running for president,” Haley declared in a “State of the Race” speech final weekend. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m campaigning every day, until the last person votes.”
Typically, when presidential candidates lose their house states throughout a major, they finish their campaigns.
In 2020, Sen. Elizabeth Warren ended her Democratic major bid after dropping her house state of Massachusetts to Biden. And in 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio ended his marketing campaign the identical day that he misplaced Florida to Trump.
But Haley’s argument is that Trump could come to be weighed down by the legal and civil prices he faces throughout quite a lot of jurisdictions and circumstances, and that Republicans deserve a candidate who polls stronger towards Joe Biden in a common election.
Yet with Haley’s loss on Saturday, she’s solely falling additional behind. Trump already had 63 delegates to Haley’s 17, and beneath South Carolina’s winner-take-all system, Trump will get all 50 delegates from the state.
That leaves the previous president with greater than 6.5 instances the variety of delegates as Haley.