Nikki Haley Was Never Going To Be The Republican Nominee

Nikki Haley was never going to be the Republican nominee. The former UN Ambassador suspended her campaign today, but the Republican nomination had long been decided. Poll after poll had shown former President Donald Trump over 50 points ahead of Haley nationally. The former President had also been ahead of Mrs. Haley in every primary state.

The writing had long been on the wall, but Haley had said that she wanted to give Republican voters a choice in who they voted for. Well, Republican voters had their choice, and they made it decisively. Besides a narrow win in deep blue state Vermont, Nikki Haley lost every other Super Tuesday contest to Donald Trump. Donald Trump was so far ahead that he has been focusing exclusively on Biden for months now.

While Nikki Haley’s run is over, she has come a long way since she announced her campaign in February of last year. While Florida Governor Ron DeSantis initially looked to be the biggest challenger to Trump for the GOP nomination, it was Nikki Haley who ended up being the final challenger. She was the first woman to ever win a GOP primary contest and state.

She likely was able to hang on longer than DeSantis because she represented more of a contrast to Donald Trump than did the Florida Governor. Many of the voters who were open to DeSantis were already going with Trump. Haley represented a more stark contrast from Trump, with voters who would be less likely to be picked off by Trump.

The former UN Ambassador represented a more old school GOP. A GOP with a more internationalist than populist focus. Unfortunately for her, the mood of the GOP is shifting away from that. Why? For a couple reasons. The failures, both perceived and real, from the George W Bush administration. The subsequent electoral failures of John McCain and Mitt Romney, 2 men who continued that orientation for the party. And finally, because many of the new working class voters the GOP has acquired over the last decade, have always been more isolationist.

In the same way that Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush failed to launch in 2016, Nikki Haley was not going to win in 2024. The one thing she did do though, was give voice to the not insignificant amount of Republicans who still want an internationalist America. What she did was show that there still was an alternative view in the party, though a minority one. She showed that not all Republicans are ready to let go of Reaganism.

But let’s not get too carried away. At no point did Mrs. Haley threaten to even be competitive for, much less win, the GOP nomination. In fact, Ron DeSantis, whose policies are closer to Trump’s, was the only other candidate who ever was remotely close to being competitive with Trump. And DeSantis himself was only competitive extremely briefly, many months ago. It really always was Donald Trump’s race to lose.

It is important that Nikki Haley’s positions are represented. But she suffered from what many other Republicans have suffered. Being too weak against the culture war the left wages. Making cringey statements about being a woman in the race. And often being used by the left leaning media as nothing more than a source of attack on Donald Trump. Nikki Haley should have recognized and addressed this.

While to her credit, Haley mostly rejected identity politics and the left leaning media’s arguments, sometimes the things she did and said made it easier to conflate a strong foreign policy and traditional GOP values, with weakness on cultural battles. She also did not endorse Mr. Trump after dropping out of the race. It is hard to understand what her angle is.

Some people think that Haley has laid the ground work to run in 2028. While that is always a possibility, the direction of the GOP is going away from her. Even if Trump loses in 2024, it is more likely that GOP voters will support Ron DeSantis, or even Vivek Ramaswamy, than Nikki Haley. Many Republican voters do not like her. Nikkey Haley staying in the race longer than necessary hurt her in this respect.

Haley gave an opportunity for the non-Trump wing of the GOP to have their voices heard. She showed that there is still an appetite for internationalism in the party. But let’s not kid ourselves. Nikki Haley was never going to be the Republican nominee. And unless something drastically changes within the GOP, she never will be.