Nikki Haley titled it book 2022 after the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's statement that “if you want to be told something, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.” She has taken pains to project the toughness of the Iron Lady in the 2024 race, from her Reaganesque views on foreign policy and her 5-inch heels that she calls ammunitionto his response when Donald Trump said that anyone who supported Haley after New Hampshire would be “permanently banned from the MAGA camp.”
“Well, in that case… donate here. Come on!” said the former governor of South Carolina in Xand linked to a contribution page. In less than 24 hours, $1 million had come pouring in.
Sometimes Haley has seemed too harsh to me, too tough. Still, I felt for her when the senior politicians of her state — the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer, two congressmen, the speaker of the state House and even the senator she appointed — traveled to New Hampshire last month to endorse and celebrate Trump. She won the state easily and is on track to win even more in her home state's primary on February 24.
Why doesn't South Carolina love Nikki Haley? Or maybe yes, but not enough?
A humiliating loss in the home state is sometimes the final straw in a nomination race (see: marcorubio, Florida, 2016). It can also make the difference between winning or losing the presidency itself (see: Al GoreTennessee, 2000).
Gore and his state had drifted apart politically, on guns and many other issues, during his decades in Congress and as vice president. Haley faces a more Rubicon-esque Rubicon moment. In South Carolina, she has trailed Trump by overwhelming margins in every poll.
At the same time, like Rubio, who easily won a third Senate term in 2022, Haley has not been unpopular in her state. In a Winthrop University poll conducted in November, 59% of registered voters had a very or somewhat favorable opinion of her, and that number rose to 71% for Republicans. And although a new Washington Post/Monmouth University poll of likely South Carolina primary voters shows her approval rating falling as Trump attacks her, 54% still say they would be excited or satisfied if she became the Republican candidate.
“She's a very conservative Republican and that has endeared her to South Carolina Republicans,” Scott Huffmon, director of the Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at Winthrop University, told me. “They just want Donald Trump to be president again.”
That is a problem. The other is that Haley has endeared herself to South Carolina voters far more than her political colleagues. “She really gained popularity among rank-and-file Republicans, while she at the same time cultivated discontent among the political elite,” Huffmon said.
Haley's political career. took off in 2004 when she defeated a 30-year legislative veteran in a state House primary. Six years later, she became governor after beating out a field that included the lieutenant governor, the attorney general and a congressman.
As governor twelve years ago, Haley chose member of the House for one term Tim Scott, a conservative black Republican, to fill a vacancy in the Senate. He abandonment his own presidential bid in November and He is now an enthusiastic Trump supporter.
“You really must I hate her”Trump said as Scott smiled behind him on victory night in New Hampshire. “Only me love you,” Scott responded. He must be madly in love, because just days earlier, Scott had claimed that the quadruple-impeached Trump “restore law and order.”
Then there is Governor Henry McMaster, another Trump lover and another politician who has a story with haley. He was the attorney general of the state whom he defeated in the 2010 gubernatorial primary. Four years later, he was elected lieutenant governor and endorsed Trump early in the 2016 race. In late November of that year, President-elect Trump appointed Haley his ambassador to the United Nations, allowing McMaster to become governor.
Trump is a vengeful cult leader. “I don't get too angry, I come”he said in his “victory” speech after the vote in New Hampshire, then threatened that if Haley didn't drop out of school, she would be under investigation in 15 minutes for “some little things she doesn't want to talk about.” Scott told CBS News the race would solidify for Trump in South Carolina and “I would love for her to join the Trump team and go ahead and endorse now and not wait any longer.” But, as Scott also said, “she's tenacious.”
The most surprising thing about the ending between Trump and Haley is that, although personally disagree With her on almost everything except supporting Ukraine and removing the Confederate flag from the state Capitol, she is a candidate tailor-made to push the Republican Party into the future: the smart, conservative party, 50-something daughter of immigrant Indian parents, with a multiracial family and a husband in the National Guard, who sees the world clearly and would not hand over Ukraine to Vladimir Putin.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, ending his campaign a few days before the New Hampshire primary, said he would endorse Trump “because we cannot go back to the old Republican Guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of overheated corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.” But DeSantis’ war on “wokemakers” and corporations like Disney is not a path to the future, nor is Trump’s war on truth, justice, and the American way.
Haley is the best option. But her own state will probably finish her off if she doesn't give in to MAGA Mania before that happens.
Jill Lorenzo is an opinion writer and author of “The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke the Gridlock.” @JillDLawrence
