Yes, it appears that Donald Trump will secure the Republican nomination for 2024. However, there are some echoes of 2016, when the media and political elite were nearly unanimous in their assessment that he had little chance of defeating Hillary Clinton.
In this uncertain and unusual era, it’s not hard to picture the ex-president having a sudden collapse and being ambushed by an adversary en route to the Republican convention in Milwaukee. Such as Nikki Haley.
We can look back at the presidential elections over the past 25 years.
With this defeat, the GOP lost control of the Electoral College. Someone managed to get through the Democratic Blue Wall. The long-standing bellwether state of Ohio has turned red. Historically Republican states of Georgia and Arizona are now leaning blue. A reality TV personality defeated GOP heavyweight Jeb Bush. Joe Biden became president despite being a complete non-entity following the initial 2020 primary.
The one thing we’ve figured out is that the rules of elected politics and the laws of political gravity aren’t necessarily relevant anymore. Voting in the traditional manner has become obsolete. Trust in polls has been shaken. The Republican primary is already decided, and yet here we are, acting as if it were yesterday.
That Haley will defeat Trump is neither predicted nor certain. Here is the plan, nevertheless, in the event that it materialises.
It all starts next Monday in the Iowa caucuses, where Haley will have to settle for a respectable second- or third-place showing to begin her uphill battle. If the former United Nations ambassador had her way, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would lose his seat in the legislature and Trump would receive less than half of the vote.
Although Haley has not focused on Iowa as much as DeSantis, who appears to have a strong ground game there, she does have a plan to pursue in the state. Marco Rubio received nearly 25% of the vote in 2016 despite only winning 5 of Iowa’s 99 counties. By focusing on the more populous areas of the state, especially the Des Moines suburbs and counties with high levels of educational attainment, he managed to secure a respectable third place finish, falling just short of Trump by 2,500 votes.
Both Haley and Rubio share a political profile, which is good and bad. They are around the same age, both are immigrants’ children, and they were both formed during the GOP’s tea party era. Florida senator Marco Rubio scored a major victory in 2016 when South Carolina governor Haley endorsed him before of the state’s primary. Haley enjoyed enormous support from Floridians back home. According to Rubio, Haley “exemplifies what I want the Republican Party to be known for in the 21st century — vibrant, reform-oriented, optimistic, upwardly mobile” as he spoke to reporters about her.
No one in Iowa, even the campaigns, thinks Trump will lose, thus Haley has a good chance of winning if she places or shows there. Actually, she might become the latest Republican contender to lose in Iowa, joining the ranks of Trump, Reagan, Bush Sr., McCain, Romney, and Romney Sr.
The next stop is New Hampshire, where the stakes are much higher, following Iowa. Anything less than a second-place performance might be disastrous for Haley’s campaign, as she is already closing the gap with Trump in the current polls.
However, she is also perfectly suited to New Hampshire. According to the polls, Trump’s support is lowest in the early state. Her support has doubled in the past two months, a clear indication that she has invested time and resources there. Republican Governor Chris Sununu, who is well supported by the people, is doing everything he can to support her. (Sununu witnessed his father, then-Gov. John Sununu, working to help George H.W. Bush win the 1988 New Hampshire election when he was thirteen years old.)
Here is her chance to lose to Trump and prove to Republicans in other states—especially her own, which votes a month later—that they have an alternative.
Since independent voters are allowed to participate in the GOP primary in New Hampshire, the rules of the state favour Haley’s candidature. The most current UNH/CNN Granite State Poll finds that among these undeclared voters, she has a significant advantage over Trump. This is a sizable portion of the electorate in New Hampshire. Unknown voters make up 39% of the state’s registered voters, which is greater than the number of Republicans or Democrats combined. Also, the Democrats don’t have a contested primary, so the Republicans are trying to sway undecided voters to cast Republican ballots. Independents accounted for over half of the GOP primary vote in 2012, the last time a competitive Democratic campaign was absent.
On Wednesday, Chris Christie took the first essential step by withdrawing from the campaign. Their combined support exceeded Trump’s in the most recent Granite State Poll, and now that the most outspoken anti-Trump Republican has withdrawn from the race, she has a better chance of gaining ground against the frontrunner. Additionally, Haley was named as Christie’s second choice by two-thirds of her fans. The Granite State Poll puts Haley within seven points of Trump in New Hampshire, so a win for her there is certainly not out of the question.
Next up is South Carolina, her home state, which will hold its election nearly one month later. Technically, Nevada is in the middle, but the logistics are so complex that it’s likely the results will be a wash for momentum. There’s a non-binding state-run primary on February 6 that the Trump-dominated local GOP refuses to acknowledge, and then two days later, there’s a state-party-run caucus.
Haley is well behind Trump in South Carolina’s polls. The state has changed since Haley became governor in 2010 due to its fast population expansion and Trump’s control of the party. Two statewide victories, particularly by a candidate riding the tiger from Manchester, make her impossible to ignore.
Haley doesn’t need to win either New Hampshire or South Carolina, contrary to popular belief; what she needs is to keep the race close enough to convince donors and voters that there may be a serious nomination battle and continue. It should be noted that by the end of February, just 142 out of 2,429 delegates—or slightly less than 6%—will have been distributed.
That being said, Haley will finally have her chance to shine on March 5 during Super Tuesday, the Republican Party’s “test bed” to find out whether she can be the Trump alternative that DeSantis was meant to be. The majority of the Republican delegates, around two-thirds of the total, will be distributed on March 5. Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, and California were among the fifteen states that were up for grabs on that particular day.
On that day, voters will go to the polls in several Trump strongholds in the South, such as Alabama, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Additionally, she will face obstacles from the new Republican Party’s working-class base. She may be a product of the South, but the GOP has seen its support dwindle in the wealthy suburbs under Trump, so it will be difficult for her to make an impact there. However, she stands a good chance of capturing a significant number of delegates if she maintains her current level of support and manages to keep him below 50% in specific states, an important criterion for delegate allocation.
It’s still possible that this is the last stop on the journey. With the lessons he gained in 2016, Trump is ready to take on the delegate grind that follows Super Tuesday and turn the primary season from a momentum play.
In order to advance, Haley needs a string of surprising victories and solid showings in some usually blue areas, where Republicans who have been badly crushed may appreciate the idea of a ticket led by Haley and reduced losses in the lower house. A big-state victory in a state like California would likely be necessary for her as well. As long as she maintained her lead over Joe Biden in head-to-head polls, she would have good reason to stay in the race, particularly in light of Trump’s legal problems.
If she manages to reach the convention, it will be a completely different story. There is little precedent for a nominee with four felony indictments, and it is difficult to imagine a situation in which she manages to oust Trump as the nominee. In the event that Haley maintained her lead over Biden in the polls and Trump fell farther behind, or if women, suburbanites, and independents were even more hostile towards him, a felony conviction would greatly strengthen her case.
Obviously, it’s a bank shot. Trump stands tall and proud. There has been no lack of recent instances, however, when the status quo of politics was shaken or where the fortunes of an apparently unstoppable politician plummeted.
Take Christie’s story into consideration. A gang of Iowans—activists and donors—even travelled to New Jersey to beg him to run for president in 2011—when he was riding high in the polls. When he finally decided to race in Iowa five years later, he finished in eighth place. By this point in the campaign, he knew he had no chance of winning the state and hence decided not to campaign there. Even New Hampshire was out of his reach.
