Former President Donald Trump wants to wrap up the 2024 Republican presidential nomination quickly, while former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley hopes to keep the primary campaign going as long as she can.
With a month between New Hampshire and the next competitive primary in South Carolina, that basic dynamic will motivate much of what the candidates and their supporters do.
That’s why forces loyal to Trump on the Republican National Committee moved Thursday to declare him the presumptive nominee for the third consecutive election. The former president himself disavowed the effort but is also threatening to freeze out Haley donors.
The RNC withdrew the proposal shortly after Trump opposed it.
Haley supporters will meanwhile clamor for debates, insinuating each attempt by Trump loyalists to declare the race over before most states have voted is actually a sign of weakness.
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“Washington elites want to make Trump the nominee before you even vote,” read the subject line of a Haley campaign fundraising email sent out on Thursday night.
Team Haley will also note that more than 40% of those who turned out in both Iowa and New Hampshire voted against Trump, with Haley getting the lion’s share of the non-Trump vote in Tuesday’s primary.
There will be votes in Nevada before South Carolina’s primary, but because of that state’s odd primary-caucus split, Trump and Haley will not face each other head to head there. Trump is on the ballot in the contest that awards delegates.
That gives Haley a few weeks to shore up her support in her home state. She is right that there is a long way to go before either candidate has amassed the delegates necessary to clinch the nomination.
But modern presidential campaigns are about momentum. When Rudy Giuliani, who spent a year atop national Republican polls ahead of the 2008 primaries, sat out the early states in hopes of starting in Florida, the problem wasn’t the delegate math. It was the fact that by the time he actively contested his first state, the race had already passed him by.
The same thing happened to another former New York City mayor. Michael Bloomberg announced late for the 2020 Democratic presidential race. He skipped all the early states. By the time Super Tuesday rolled around, Joe Biden’s South Carolina win had already changed the trajectory of the race. Bloomberg dropped out the next day.
Haley hasn’t repeated these mistakes. She has been active in all the early states. But she hasn’t won a primary yet and isn’t leading anywhere. She needs that dynamic to change, likely as soon as South Carolina, to sustain whatever momentum she generated from outperforming her poll numbers in New Hampshire and outlasting the other non-Trump candidates in the primary.
Naturally, Trump doesn’t want anything to change. That’s why he has avoided the debate stage, and that’s why he’s trying to get Republicans to coalesce around him early. He would like everyone else to quit while he’s ahead. Everyone but Haley has.
But there is another reason for Trump’s impatience besides the remote possibility he could lose. In 1992, George H.W. Bush didn’t lose a single primary or caucus. Nevertheless, Pat Buchanan’s presence in the race, often drawing a third of the vote against an incumbent president, highlighted Republican discontent with Bush that would later become a problem in the general election.
The longer Haley stays around, the more Trump’s growing irritation with her might cause him to behave in ways that are unhelpful for his November prospects. Calling Haley a “birdbrain,” making fun of her dress, and engaging in other personal attacks won’t do anything to help Trump with suburban women.
Haley could keep getting enough votes to show divisions in the party without getting close to winning. Trump is not necessarily temperamentally suited to bringing Republicans back together again when it’s over.
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The best solution for Trump isn’t an RNC resolution but a big win in Haley’s South Carolina, where he has the support of the sitting governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and both senators.
Otherwise, Haley is going to do what all underdogs do: everything she can to keep herself in the game.