Getting Nikked

I remain fascinated by TV news doing its best to create a horserace in the Republican Party.  It leaped to the forefront once again after the Iowa Caucus, as Nikki Haley declared that the GOP was now a two-man race – clearly meaning her and Trump.  And the media has gone with that scenario, talking about how she’s a candidate on the rise, that there's a path for her to win the race, because therefore has a chance to beat Trump in New Hampshire – and if that happens, then…well, then there's South Carolina, and she’s the former governor of South Carolina, so…so...

Nikki Haley is not going to win the GOP presidential nomination.  Trump is going to be the Republican nominee.

I was thinking about stopping there, but this does deserve a bit more the fill in the spaces about how ludicrous and almost offensive the media push is to make it seem like there's an actual race here.

Nikki Haley has risen in the polls from a year ago.  And she’s risen over other candidates who have dropped out because they saw they had no chance.  The fact that she’s stayed in the race without having a chance either does not mean, however, that she’s gotten any more of a chance to win the nomination than did Vivek Ramaswamy – who finally on Monday saw the writing on the wall and dropped out of the race.  However, back in October, Nikki Haley was polling at 16% in Iowa.  On Monday, she got 19%.  So, with all the other candidates having dropped out since then, and all those votes to pick up, Haley has risen 3 points in Iowa in three months.  (Which is within the margin of error.  So, it's possible she’s exactly where she was back in October.)

Moreover, this "candidate on the rise!" finished in third place in what was essentially a four-person race.  That said, she did swamp Vivek Ramaswamy who got 7.7%, but in fairness Ramaswamy only beat me by 7.7 points.

And not only did Haley finish third, close behind Ron DeSantis, the unfortunate reality for her to actually win the nomination is that she had to beat Trump – who swamped her by 32 points.  Or to put it another way, Trump beat her by three times the margin she beat Vivek Ramaswamy.

Which brings us to New Hampshire.  A state that has got the news media all a-jibber since a poll shows her in just single digits behind Trump.  And what if she beats him there??!  Or merely comes close?  Well…it’s meaningless.  For starters, New Hampshire is not indicative of most any other state in the country, being largely white – and tiny, only about 1.3 million people, and far more moderate than almost all other Red states.

More importantly, another new poll released Wednesday for New Hampshire has Nikki Haley 16 points behind Trump.  If that margin holds, no doubt she’ll claim victory since it would mean she cut her margin of defeat in Iowa in half.  But given that New Hampshire is a Must Win state for her – or even a Must Come Incredibly Close – that’s a huge difference to overcome.  But who knows?  Maybe the closer poll is right and maybe she’ll even win (she won’t) or maybe she’ll get within single digits (she might), the reality is that she and Trump will split delegates, and that’s what counts in getting the nomination, and it won’t help her.  Not just in delegates, but "momentum."

And it won’t help her because her state of South Carolina looms.  And right now, she’s not only losing, but losing at Iowa levels, behind Trump in the polls by 29 points.  Again, this is not only her home state – but she was governor!  Losing there, getting pummeled there, would be devastating.  But it’s even worse for her, since the state allocates delegates by winner-take-all.  And any faux-momentum will come to a crashing halt.

So, Haley will likely have three loses in a row to Trump, including losing the winner-take-all state she was governor of by almost 30 points.

But even all this is moot, because right around the corner on March 5 is Super Tuesday.

And what hasn’t gotten a lot of attention is that over the past year, the Trump team gamed the system to make it harder for opposing candidates to get delegates.  Not just from winner-take-all, but raising the threshold a candidate much reach before they can receives any delegates.

Furthermore, for all pundits pondering how Trump’s court cases might affect him within the GOP -- his four indictments haven’t hurt him in the party at all, none of those four court cases will be decided by March 5, Trump will have no convictions from them by March 5, he won’t be in jail.  Everything in the Republican path for Trump getting the party’s nomination will be just normal by Super Tuesday.

And as of Super Tuesday on March 5, the Republican Party will have allocated about 1,100 delegates.  Because of his primary wins and new rules favoring him, Trump will most assuredly have received the vast majority of those delegates.  And he only needs 1,200 delegates to lock in the nomination.  Which means the Republican race might be close to over by March 6.  That’s about 6-1/2 weeks from now.  The GOP campaign will basically be over.

Nikki Haley is not going to win the GOP presidential nomination.  Trump is going to be the Republican nominee.

So much for the rising candidacy of Nikki Haley.  Who just rose by a whopping 3 points in three months, finished third, lost by 32 points, is behind by between 9-16 points in a moderate Must Win state coming next week, and is losing by 29 points in her home state that she was governor of.

But yes, please, oh please, news media, tell us about the Path to Victory for Nikki Haley.

And one addendum to this all.

Once Trump gets the GOP nomination locked up, if he later is convicted of a felony and (for the sake of the fantasy argument) even maybe gets jailed and is also removed from the ballot in several states by the 14th Amendment so that Republican Elders decide they have no choice and must take the nomination from him -- and Nikki Haley (or someone) gets it by any number of "Oh, my God, what do we do now??!!" backroom. makeshift scenarios...

...first of all, no, that is not a "path" to winning the nomination, that's a junkyard scrum on a level just a couple steps above picking a lucky name out of a hat.  But second and far more importantly...

...just imagine the nuclear explosion by Trump and his supporters at having the nomination he literally and demonstrably won taken away from him.  If you think you've heard everything from Trump about rigged and stolen elections, you haven't heard anything yet.  He'll go nuclear to utterly trash and destroy the nominee, whoever it is, and burn down the party to ashes, and then tell his base to stay home and not vote.

Nikki Haley is not going to win the GOP presidential nomination.  There is no "path" for her to win.  But as awful as it would be for Republicans should Trump be convicted, jailed and have his name taken off several state ballots, if the nomination gets dumped on her by default that way -- it will be even worse for her and the party.  It will be the difference between losing an election and having the party broken apart.