Nikki Haley Won’t Drop Out (As Long As Donors Keep Giving)

When word got around that Nikki Haley was going to make a big speechabout the “state of the race” just a few days before the South Carolina Republican presidential primary, some people naturally figured she was going to drop out of the 2024 race. While her disastrous deficit in Palmetto State polling has recently abated a bit (she’s now trailing Donald Trump by 25 points in the RealClearPolitics polling averages; she was behind by more than 30 points just a few days ago), she is still cruising for a bruising in her home state on February 24. And as polls begin to drift in for the massive number of states that are holding contests in the month after South Carolina votes, it’s clear she’s far behind Trump in most if not all of them. In Michigan, the very next state on the calendar, for example, Trump’s lead was 60 points in the only public poll we’ve seen this year. In California — the largest state to vote on March 5, Super Tuesday — Trump led by 52 points (72 percent to 20 percent) in a brand new Emerson poll. Nationally, the former president is supported by three-fourths of Republican primary voters, and leads Haley by 58 points (75 percent to 17 percent).

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