She’s not quitting. Takeaways from Nikki Haley’s push to stay in the GOP contest against Trump

KIAWAH ISLAND, SC — KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Nikki Haley’s team is preparing for an embarrassment in its home state Saturday during the Republican presidential primaries in South Carolina. Conventional wisdom suggests she will be forced to quit. But that may not be the case in 2024.

Ahead of a major speech on Tuesday, Haley told The Associated Press that she will remain in the race no matter what, at least until after 20 more states vote via Super Tuesday on March 5. That’s even as Donald Trump’s MAGA movement is furious that it refuses to drop out. After all, she is the last major candidate standing in his way to the nomination.

The Associated Press spoke with Haley and several senior campaign officials and donors about her strategy ahead of the big speech. Here are some tips on how and why she plans to stay in the race:

Haley knows there is speculation that she will drop out on Tuesday. But she told The Associated Press she won’t be going anywhere until after Super Tuesday. Yes, even if she is blown away by Donald Trump in her home state during the South Carolina primaries on Saturday.

‘Ten days after South Carolina, another twenty states vote. I mean, this isn’t Russia. We don’t want anyone to go in and just get 99% of the votes,” Haley said. “What’s the rush? Why is everyone so panicked that I have to drop out of this race?

In case you don’t believe her, her team has provided new details about her plans after South Carolina.

She is spending more than $500,000 on a new television advertising campaign that kicks off in Michigan on Wednesday. Her post-South Carolina itinerary includes 11 separate stops in seven days in Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, Utah, Virginia, Washington, DC, North Carolina and Massachusetts.

The program also includes at least ten expensive private fundraising events.

Just don’t ask Haley which primaries she’ll win.

It’s a fair question for someone who says she has a legitimate path to winning the Republican presidential nomination. But Haley and her team don’t want to answer that question specifically. Or maybe they can’t. That’s because polls show her as a big underdog in virtually every state — even the state where she lives and has been twice elected governor — given Trump’s hold on the Republican Party.

Remember that Republican primaries are typically decided by the party’s most energetic partisans — not the broader group of moderates and independents who have more influence in a general election.

Haley had a fiery response when pressed about her specific prospects for victory during the AP interview.

“Instead of asking me which states I’m going to win, why don’t we ask how he’s going to win the general election after spending a whole year in court?” she said.

Still, Haley’s team says there are several states where she can be competitive with Trump — especially those with open or semi-open primaries that allow a broader group of voters to participate instead of just hardcore Republicans.

One of those, by the way, is South Carolina, where voters can participate in whatever presidential primaries they want – as long as they vote only once.

Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but most presidential candidates don’t drop out when they lose; they drop out when they run out of money. The conditions are of course related to each other. Who wants to waste money on a loser?

But somehow, even as the losses begin to pile up, Haley is raising money at the fastest pace of her political career.

Traditional Republican donors like Eric Levine, who hosted a fundraiser for Haley in New York earlier this month, said he is betting that Haley will somehow find an opening if she remains patient given Trump’s legal baggage and the tendency towards major blunders and scandals.

There is also a more emotional appeal. Many in the party simply aren’t ready to surrender to Trump’s MAGA politics, even if the math is on his side.

Or as Levine puts it: “We are not prepared to fold our tents and pray at the altar of Donald Trump.”

Haley’s campaign raised $5 million through a fundraising campaign following her second-place finish in New Hampshire, including stops in Texas, Florida, New York and California, according to campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas. Her campaign raised $16.5 million in January alone – her best fundraising month ever. She raised another $1 million last week in the 24 hours after Trump attacked her husband, a military member currently serving overseas.

While Trump calls Haley names like “stupid” and “bird-brained,” Haley is sharpening her focus on the Republican former president’s legal troubles.

Time and time again, she attacked Trump for spending as much — or even more — time in court as he did during his campaign. She predicted that Trump’s political status would change dramatically if he were a convicted felon before Election Day, while worrying aloud that the Republican National Committee would become a personal “piggy bank” for his legal fees.

“People don’t look six months ahead when these lawsuits have happened,” Haley said. “He will be in court throughout March, April, May and June. How on earth can you win a general election if these things continue and the judgments keep coming?â€

And she didn’t exactly agree with Trump that all 91 charges against him are all politically motivated.

“Some, I think, are very politically motivated. He’ll have to defend himself for some of them,†she said, making a clear distinction.

Some Republicans want Haley to stay in the race until the party’s national convention in July. But Haley said she isn’t thinking much about her strategy after Super Tuesday. She also declined to say whether she would drop out of the race if and when Trump reaches the 50% delegate threshold to formally become the party’s presumptive nominee.

At the current rate, that will probably happen sometime in March.

She was also non-committal when asked if she would help Trump campaign this fall if he ultimately wins the Republican nomination.

“I don’t know what actions I’m going to take in that regard, but I’ve always said that even though I have problems with President Trump, I have even more problems with Joe Biden,” Haley said.

And finally, we asked her if she could 100% rule out getting a presidential run with No Labels, a centrist outside group that actively courts potential candidates. She’d almost taken herself out of the argument, but this didn’t feel like the kind of answer that would put the question aside for good.

You can judge it.

“I haven’t had a single conversation with No Labels yet. They have been sending signals to me that they want to talk. I told them I’m not interested in talking,” Haley said. ‘I’m running as a Republican. That’s my focus: staying in this as a Republican candidate and winning as a Republican.”