After home-state humbling, the question now is: What's Nikki Haley running for?
Trump's defeat of ex-governor in South Carolina raises question of why she's staying in the race
It's become a recurring joke in recent Nikki Haley campaign speeches where she dismisses various theories about why she's still in the U.S. presidential race.
Questions about her continued participation will only escalate after her lopsided defeat in her own state of South Carolina as Donald Trump appeared headed for a roughly 20-point victory margin over Haley, the state's former governor.
This is after Haley already invited the media earlier in the week to a decidedly unusual announcement for a candidate: She's not dropping out.
Haley has lost the first four states. She even lost the race in Nevada where Trump didn't appear on the ballot, with Republicans there opting for "none of these candidates." She's now lost in her own state of South Carolina by a wide margin, and she's trailing him by dozens of points in national polls.
Does she want to be Trump's running mate? Haley laughs off the idea in recent speeches, given how their relationship has soured. He regularly refers to her as "birdbrain."
Is she setting up a future run? The news outlet Politico speculates as much. Or is she trying to build a brand outside politics?
"I think she's running for a board seat," Republican strategist Terry Sullivan told a podcast titled What's Nikki Haley's Endgame? Or perhaps, he added: "Maybe she's going to be [a TV host] on The View."
Running as a backup?
There's one scenario Haley doesn't mention in those stump speeches, and it's the one likeliest to emerge in conversation with political insiders.
It's the possibility that she's running to cement her status as a Plan B. As a backup should Trump be forced off the ticket, either by a health setback or by winding up in jail following a conviction in one of his criminal cases.
This scenario will continue to animate conversation after her home-state defeat, as Haley promises to stay in the race at least through Super Tuesday on March 5.
Two-dozen state primaries will have happened by then, half the country. Haley said it's clear from her approximate 40-per-cent score in South Carolina that many Republicans want an alternative to Trump.
"I have a duty to give them that choice," Haley said in a buoyant speech Saturday night. "Today is not the end of our story. We're heading to Michigan tomorrow."
Talking to primary voters, it's clear that Haley supporters want her staying in. Some of these Haley supporters are Democrats. A higher-than-usual number crossing partisan lines to vote in this year's Republican primaries.
"I'm here to vote against Donald Trump," said retired Brooklyn school teacher Diane Spignardo, a Democrat who now lives in South Carolina and voted in the Republican primary outside Charleston on Saturday.
"I don't trust [Trump] with our democracy.… If he implodes, … she's a much more viable, caring person than Trump."
Andy Hagedon calls himself a libertarian who would, grudgingly, vote for Joe Biden in November to stop Trump. On Saturday, he ticked the box for Haley.
"I'm voting against somebody today," he said in Mount Pleasant, S.C., outside a polling station. "It's my belief that that little lying Trump doesn't deserve another four years."
He just hoped Haley might gain a slight bump, in South Carolina and through Super Tuesday: "Enough of a bump that she can stay in.… As long as [her] campaign coffers hold out."
But it's not just Democrats.
Haley as Plan B? Could be a longshot
Republicans voiced a similar sentiment at a Haley rally, a categorical wish that Haley might linger in, if only for that Plan B scenario.
"I think she should stay in the whole way if she can because you don't ever know what's going to happen," Becky Ward Curtis said outside a rally in Georgetown, S.C., on Thursday.
"You don't know that he's going to be on the ballot. Or [if] something's going to happen with him."
She voted for Trump before but said she's "sick" of him and the way he treats people. She blames him for injecting a toxicity into politics unlike anything she's seen in her 77 years.
Now comes a pre-emptive reality check.
There's no indication that even in the above scenario of an emergency replacement, the party would ever turn to Haley.
For starters, it's entirely possible — probable even — that Trump would insist on staying in, even in the event of a criminal conviction.
And some Republican observers say it's hard to imagine the party turning to Haley in the event of the other scenario: A Trump health setback.
The party would likelier turn to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, said Sullivan.
"Let's say Donald Trump gets hit by a meteor, … [or] choking on a Big Mac, … [do you think] everybody else will be, like, 'Oh, yeah, that's cool. Sure, no problem.… Go ahead, [Nikki Haley],'" Sullivan, who has worked on major campaigns, including in South Carolina, told the podcast.
"She's the last person they'd pick."
Depending on when the party needed an emergency replacement, it would either be decided in individual states as they name their delegates to the party's summer convention, or by the Republican National Committee.
In any case, it would provoke a frantic power-struggle.
One GOP insider-analyst said it's hard to imagine the party turning, even in a pinch, to a candidate seen as an avatar of the pre-Trump, less-nationalist GOP.
"That reflects a misunderstanding of the Republican electorate," said James Wallner, an author and political scientist at South Carolina's Clemson University, and former staffer to several high-profile Washington Republicans.
"The Republican electorate is not aligned with Nikki Haley on really important issues that are high on the public agenda right now. And given that, I find it very unlikely that they would just turn to Nikki Haley all of a sudden if they can't vote for Trump."
Haley's staunch support for Ukraine and U.S. military allies, and pro-trade stance, means she's running against the current in her party, he said.
He added she can try running for as long as donors give her money, but "it will become increasingly hard to make an argument [for donations]."
Dividing line in GOP: Not just about policy
It's a recurring theme in conversations with Trump supporters that even if their candidate failed to make it to the finish line, Haley is not their preferred alternative.
A family of four Trump supporters at a polling station in South Carolina all brushed off the idea that their former governor, Haley, might be Trump's backup.
"Nikki, it's time to get out," said Gordon Badgley.
His wife, Anne Badgley, said her opinion of Haley has plummeted as she campaigns against Trump: "South Carolina is done with her.… She's making a fool of herself. She's acting like she's a winner, and she's not."
Two Trump-supporting sisters said there is no Plan B.
If Trump were somehow sidelined, Deb Purcell said: "I'd handwrite him in. Everybody would." When asked about the criminal charges, she swore, calling them an outrage.
Speaking at an event where Donald Trump Jr. had just appeared in Charleston, she described Haley as a sellout to a variety of forces: Democrats, China and even financier-donor George Soros.
She distrusts most politicians. The retired financial-services worker admitted to a soft spot for one: "I do like RFK," she said, meaning third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a the lawyer, environmentalist and anti-vaccine activist.
Interviews with South Carolina primary voters expose a dividing line in the Republican Party, in policy and in attitude.
Haley supporters spoke of wanting the government improved. Trump supporters of wanting the government upended, expressing deep distrust of it.
Outside the polling station in Mount Pleasant, S.C., members of the Badgley clan were asked who they wanted as Trump's running mate.
Two mentioned South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as a possible vice-president.
Two mentioned candidates they hope will expose the secrets of the U.S. national-security apparatus: Michael Flynn, the indicted, since-pardoned former Trump aide, and Kash Patel, whom Trump tried placing atop the CIA in the final days of his presidency and who recently threatened to prosecute journalists in a second Trump term.
One even suggested John F. Kennedy Jr., killed in a 1999 plane crash, might still be alive and could be appointed to expose truths about his father's murder.
Nobody mentioned their former governor, Nikki Haley.
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