CONCORD, New Hampshire — Nikki Haley smiled through her loss, congratulated Donald Trump on his win here, and then burned bridges with the former president. It was her strongest denunciation yet, proof that, at least in that moment, Haley had no plans to surrender her White House ambitions.
Flanked by cheering supporters, Haley said the “worst kept secret in politics” was that Democrats want a 2020 rematch because Trump is “the only Republican in the country who Joe Biden can defeat.” She again questioned his cognitive ability, challenging him to prove his mental acuity “on a debate stage with me.” Perhaps most galling to the MAGA faithful, the former South Carolina governor warned that “a Trump nomination is a Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency.”
Haley, in short, did not sound like a candidate about to give Trump what he so desperately wants: a glide path to the nomination. She served as his ambassador to the United Nations for two years, the rare official to exit with his blessing. She also knows how to get under his skin.
This is the road less traveled among Republicans seeking the 2024 presidential nomination. Most dropped out before or shortly after the Iowa caucuses and many have subsequently endorsed Trump. He was flanked by three of those former rivals Tuesday – Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota Gov. Doug Bergum, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. Trump watched the Haley speech. He was clearly annoyed.
“This is not your typical victory speech, but let’s not have somebody take a victory when she had a very bad night,” he told supporters, before adding that “you can’t let people get away with bullshit” and mocking Haley for wearing a “fancy dress that probably wasn’t so fancy.”
Trump has struck a more magnanimous tone at times. He congratulated his rivals after his win in Iowa and correctly pronounced the name of Ron DeSantis for the first time in over a year after the Florida governor endorsed him. Haley did not get that treatment.
“You must really hate her,” he said to Sen. Tim Scott of the former South Carolina governor who appointed him to the Senate. Scott, who suspended his campaign before Iowa and was in New Hampshire stumping for Trump, stepped to the microphone and said, “I just love you.”
While annoying the former president plays well among resistance types, it does not put points on the board. Haley bet big on New Hampshire and came up short. Increasingly, her path to the nomination seems bleak, even though she promises to fight on to South Carolina and Super Tuesday.
Haley will fly south and speak to Republicans in the Virgin Islands Wednesday morning before returning home to South Carolina to begin her swing through the Palmetto State. A big part of her play: targeting independents. Betsy Ankney, Haley’s campaign manager, released a memo early Tuesday morning noting that “roughly two thirds” of Super Tuesday contests “are in states with open or semi-open primaries.”
David Axelrod, former President Obama’s first campaign manager, wondered on CNN if Haley had the stomach for that kind of slog, especially if it meant risking a loss in her backyard. “I really question whether she ultimately wants to go forward to South Carolina,” he said, “and put her popularity to the test in her home state.” Haley had just courted independent voters and come up short.
Haley’s top surrogate, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, had gone from calling New Hampshire “a must-win,” telling RealClearPolitics that the state would be “a reset button” for the entire race, to insisting that the goal was, in fact, just to finish in “a strong second.” At press time, the candidate was down by nearly 12 points according to most estimates. The Haley campaign, all the same, argued that she “defies pollsters, pundits, and predictions.”
Tuesday was not a win without qualification for Trump either as Brit Hume observed on Fox News as election results rolled in. “If you think of him as an incumbent,” he said of the former president, “this showing tonight is weak, right? I mean, he should be doing better.”
No one cried in their beer at the Haley watch party. The candidate didn’t give them much time; she spoke for a little under 15 minutes just moments after networks called the race for Trump. No one left a winner either. Supporters of the former diplomat were exactly that: diplomatic while searching for silver linings and insisting that a path to the nomination was on the horizon.
“If she comes out of this with 45% to 50%,” said Eric Jostrom, a Haley donor who clutched a copy of the Littleton Weekly Record, “she’s not gonna die.” In the middle of his local paper: A full-page endorsement of the candidate. He bought the advertisement and predicted that Haley was built for the long haul.
Many supporters reported tempered expectations. Karen O’Connell, a homemaker from Stratham, said she “came in expecting second place.” Though optimistic, she admitted the end of the road for Haley could be around the corner. “If she doesn’t win South Carolina? If she doesn’t win her own home state?” she wondered. “If you can’t win with your own people, the ones who love you, I mean, c’mon.”
Haley trails Trump in that state by more than 30 points, according to the RealClearPolitics Average.
Rich Clymer, a defense contractor, held a Haley sign outside a local precinct for “seven hours.” Initial returns from that polling station had her winning, and he was “ecstatic.” Clymer didn’t learn of Haley’s loss until he reached her victory party. He missed her speech but likened the race to “Rocky III,” the boxing film, “with Mr. T pounding away, and [Rocky] staying in there, shouting ‘come on! That’s all you got?’”
What the former president has got, however, is two first-place finishes.
Asked if Haley should fight on to Super Tuesday even if she loses South Carolina, Clymer replied, “You know that Rocky had to stay in until the end of the fight, right?” His wife, Wendy Clymer, a retired middle school teacher, said Haley “should stay in until he goes to jail,” referencing Trump’s myriad of legal challenges, adding “I mean that!”
Mark Harris, the lead strategist for her allied PAC, Stand for America, said that Haley donors remain energetic and that the group had been preparing, and saving, for a marathon struggle for the nomination. Haley was an “outsider” and “insurgent,” he told RCP. “We’re gonna run that guerilla campaign in South Carolina and beyond.” The strong negative reaction from Trump World, he said, was “because they do not want to face Nikki over an extended period of time.”
Krista Moore said she is prepared for that slog. The North Carolina chair of the organization Women for Nicki plans to travel to South Carolina in an RV to stump for the candidate. “It was the best night ever. I’m so excited,” she told RCP of Haley’s second-place finish.
The gulf between the two rivals was then just seven points, according to most analysis, and Moore was “happy with what we got” and said, “If we can get a gap of less than 10%, that is huge.” Before the end of the night, the gap had increased to nearly 11.4 points. And it was growing.
