Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has reached a decision point after her loss in the New Hampshire Republican primary in January. He could go the way of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Democratic presidential candidate who conceded nicely to the party's eventual nominee in 2020. Or he could go the way of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential nominee who pursued the party's nominee for months in 2016, which hurt her, depleted her resources and fatefully damaged her standing with the party's base. Which one would Haley choose?
He had hesitated in New Hampshire, offering a complicated message in a race in which Donald Trump and Trumpism are the overriding issue. His recent harsh attacks on Trump and his promise to stay in the race even after his 20-point loss to Trump in the South Carolina primary on Saturday suggest he has achieved greater clarity. For now, he's chosen to take the less hospitable route: more Bernie '16 than '20.
That could be very bad news for Trump.
In 2020, Joe Biden won about 87% of Sanders supporters in November, according to Dear All by Vanderbilt University political scientist John Sides and two colleagues. In 2016, by contrast, only about 79% of Sanders supporters voted for Hillary Clinton in the general election. Worse yet, Sanders received a much higher share of votes in 2016 (more than 4 in 10) than he did in 2020. So Clinton's deficit in November was even more significant.
“In 2016 we found that Sanders supporters had a less favorable view of Clinton as the campaign progressed,” Sides told me.
Every race involving Trump is sui generis. (White nationalist demagogues under multiple federal and state indictments are tough on standard political models.) But it's not hard to imagine that a miniature version of Bernie-mentum could be taking hold in the 2024 Republican presidential race. Haley is giving anti-Trump Republicans, many of them women, a place to turn. The question is whether she will also give enough of them a place to stay, even after Trump is the party's official nominee.
“She is not going to win the nomination. But she will get more than 20% in most of the primaries she participates in,” said Mike Madrid, former political director of the California Republican Party and anti-Trump activist. If a sizable minority of those Republican voters refuse to support Trump in the general election, their path to victory is virtually impossible. “She has a very hard ceiling,” Madrid said. “If Haley can lower that ceiling three or four points, that's devastating.”
Is that Haley's goal? It's hard to count. Haley avoids the “Never Trump” label and presents herself only as a truth-teller who has “no fear of Trump retaliation” or any desire to “kiss the ring.” However, squeezed between the mutually hating camps of MAGA and Never Trump, she has found her own way. There she is joined by a steady minority of the primary electorate, a community of exiles that translates into political influence that no Trump supplicant can muster. It's still possible that Haley could endorse Trump. But she would gain nothing and lose much by capitulating.
“She may be the first Republican politician of this era to realize that, with Trump in this area, she has no future,” Madrid said. “If Trump wins, the next nominee will be Trump himself or his son or daughter. He is put his daughter-in-law in charge of the Republican National Committee.”
The longer Haley remains in power, the more she will become a rallying point for Republicans who do not want to be governed by a degenerate cult. And the more Republicans become accustomed to opposing Trump, the more precarious their situation becomes. It may take a wave of Democratic voters to crush Trump. But only a handful of Republicans, who retain their support, can achieve a similar result.
Trump has become more authoritarian and vindictive, but he has not crushed resistance, even within the Republican Party. Donors ignored his threats and continued funding Haley without any genuine hope of victory. Recently in Washington, as Haley lost the primary in his home state, pro-democracy conservatives gathered for the First Principles Summit, featuring a host of Never Trump luminaries. Last year, the conference attracted about 400 attendees. This year more than 700 have registered. Former Republican representative Liz Cheney has given a backbone to pro-democracy conservatives. Now Haley is giving them an electoral voice.
In the face of Haley's intransigence, a Trump campaign official told Semafor's David Weigel that MAGA's march to victory would not be derailed by Haley's “deception.” In fact, it would be wishful thinking for Haley to believe he can clinch the Republican presidential nomination. However, if the goal is to destroy Donald Trump and repel the political pathologies he embodies, Haley appears to be on the right path.
Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. @fdwilkinson
