- Unlikely to win in South Carolina, Nikki Haley set a benchmark for herself: higher than 43%.
- That is how a lot of the vote she gained in New Hampshire, her finest state to this point.
- However she did not do even that, election outcomes present.
It has been clear for weeks that Nikki Haley was going to lose her house state.
Going through that grim actuality — and questions over how she may 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 feel I must do higher than I did in New Hampshire,” Haley stated on Meet The Press on January 28. “I would like to indicate that I am constructing momentum.”
“Does that need to be a win? I do not assume that essentially must be a win,” she continued. “However it actually must be higher than what I did in New Hampshire, and it actually must be shut.”
Haley gained 43.2% of the vote in New Hampshire, her finest outcome to this point. She later misplaced the Nevada main — the place she was the one candidate on the poll — to “none of those 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 main.
“I refuse to give up. South Carolina will vote on Saturday. However on Sunday, I will nonetheless be operating for president,” Haley declared in a “State of the Race” speech final weekend. “I am not going wherever. I am campaigning each day, till the final individual votes.”
Usually, when presidential candidates lose their house states throughout a main, they finish their campaigns.
In 2020, Sen. Elizabeth Warren ended her Democratic main bid after shedding 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.
However Haley’s argument is that Trump might come to be weighed down by the legal and civil prices he faces throughout quite a lot of jurisdictions and instances, and that Republicans deserve a candidate who polls stronger towards Joe Biden in a normal election.
But with Haley’s loss on Saturday, she’s solely falling additional behind. Trump already had 63 delegates to Haley’s 17, and below 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 occasions the variety of delegates as Haley.
