One week earlier than the Republican presidential main in South Carolina, the place polls recommend she trails by an insurmountable margin, Nikki Haley was in Texas, promising to go nationwide, as most main candidates, even in probably the most dire circumstances, often do.
Regardless of massive losses in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, and the steep odds going through her in South Carolina, her dwelling state, Ms. Haley is exhibiting no indicators of relenting. She continues to be raking in donations and constructing out her nationwide footprint, as she pledges to maneuver her get together previous former President Donald J. Trump.
“He mentioned he’s going to spend extra time in a courtroom than he’s going to be on the marketing campaign path,” she mentioned of Mr. Trump on Friday in San Antonio, referring to the hours he spent in New York final week going through prison and civil circumstances. “However let me inform you what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to be on the marketing campaign path.”
Ms. Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and a United Nations ambassador beneath Mr. Trump, is projecting confidence whilst her path to victory seems to be stark. In lots of South Carolina polls, she trails Mr. Trump by roughly 30 factors — and the image past subsequent week’s contest doesn’t look a lot brighter.
If Ms. Haley continues together with her plans to remain within the race past South Carolina, as she has pledged, here’s a take a look at how she intends to take her long-shot bid nationwide.
The Map
The Haley marketing campaign has introduced groups of elected officers, enterprise leaders and distinguished neighborhood members to assist lead their efforts in Alaska, California, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Utah and Washington. Her “Nationwide Ladies for Nikki Coalition,” which counts chapters in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, has kicked into full gear, with a mission to courtroom suburban girls turned off by Mr. Trump.
On the day after the South Carolina main, whatever the final result, Ms. Haley has mentioned she’s going to head to Michigan, which holds its personal contest Feb. 27. From there, she has plans to crisscross the nation forward of Tremendous Tuesday, the biggest single day of the first season, and the final actual likelihood she must show she will be able to change the course of the nomination. The anticipated stops embrace Colorado, Minnesota, Utah and Virginia.
Ms. Haley is betting her candidacy on courting independents and new Republicans in Michigan and in 11 Tremendous Tuesday states the place Republican primaries usually are not restricted to voters affiliated together with her personal get together. However that technique didn’t reach New Hampshire, and she or he has proven weaknesses together with her personal base: She acquired assist from solely 29 percent of college-educated Republicans nationally, based on a CNN ballot, whereas Mr. Trump had 55 % of the identical demographic. One other Morning Consult tracking poll confirmed Ms. Haley trailing Mr. Trump by massive margins in each Tremendous Tuesday state.
Mr. Trump has undertaken his personal push in Tremendous Tuesday states, saying practically 80 endorsements from state get together and elected officers in 14 states. And his workforce has left little to likelihood: He and his allies have engaged in a backroom marketing campaign to twist delegate guidelines in his favor, and he has mentioned Ms. Haley’s donors could be “completely barred from the MAGA camp.”
The Message
Ms. Haley and her allies have stored up a gradual drumbeat of criticism on Mr. Trump in nationwide media appearances and in tv and digital advertisements. Her message has largely remained constant: that it’s time for a brand new generational chief who can transfer her get together past the “chaos” that’s Mr. Trump. However her assault strains to underscore that almost all lately have turn into sharper-edged and extra quite a few. She has criticized him for disparaging her husband, Maj. Michael Haley; for suggesting he would encourage Russian aggression towards U.S. allies in Europe; for skewing the delegate depend; and for tightening his grip over get together establishments, together with the Republican Nationwide Committee.
She has continued to blast Mr. Trump for spending time and marketing campaign donations on his authorized troubles. She has sought to model him and President Biden as “grumpy, outdated males.”
However as of final week, Ms. Haley had not spent any cash on tv advertisements past Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Her allied tremendous PAC, Stand for America Inc., had invested solely about $144,900 in different states, based on AdImpact, a media-tracking agency. The Trump marketing campaign, by comparability, had spent practically six occasions as a lot, or about $855,200, nationwide.
Pointing to Ms. Haley’s losses, Karoline Leavitt, Mr. Trump’s nationwide press secretary, contended he wouldn’t solely “crush” her in personal yard and “demolish her on Tremendous Tuesday.” “Solely a birdbrain would keep on this race,” she mentioned in an announcement, utilizing Mr. Trump’s insulting nickname for Ms. Haley.
The Funding
Mr. Trump’s warfare chest dwarfs Ms. Haley’s marketing campaign funds. He had greater than $33 million money readily available on the finish of December, whereas Ms. Haley had $14.6 million.
However because it has been from the beginning of her marketing campaign, one vibrant spot for Ms. Haley is her capacity to lift cash. She pulled in $16.5 million in January, her highest month-to-month whole to this point. She has the backing of various rich donors. Her marketing campaign turned Mr. Trump’s ultimatum towards her donors into a chance to promote about 20,000 T-shirts that learn “Barred. Completely.” This month, she introduced in not less than $2.7 million at fund-raisers in Texas and California, based on her marketing campaign, and $1 million extra within the 48 hours after Mr. Trump disparaged Ms. Haley’s husband at a rally.
The Rationale
In interviews, a few of Ms. Haley’s high-dollar donors in Texas and California echoed her give attention to Mr. Trump’s and President Biden’s superior ages, and cited Mr. Trump’s authorized circumstances as indicators that something stays attainable within the race. Mr. Trump spent Thursday in a Manhattan courtroom on prison prices stemming from a hush-money fee to a porn star in 2016. A New York choose on Friday ordered him to pay a penalty of practically $355 million plus curiosity after discovering him chargeable for conspiring to govern his internet value.
“So much can occur in politics and in our authorized system,” mentioned Timothy Draper, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Haley donor. “And the American folks often come to their senses after they come to the polls.”
At Gilley’s Dallas South Aspect Music Corridor, an upscale honky-tonk, Jack Matthews, its proprietor and a distinguished developer, mentioned he was having a neater time elevating funds for Ms. Haley now than when he began within the early days of her marketing campaign. “Some persons are afraid of supporting her due to retribution with Trump,” he acknowledged. However loads of others, he mentioned, “are saying, ‘We’d like a change.’”
His venue, the place Ms. Haley spoke on Thursday evening earlier than greater than 1,000 folks, one yr to the date of beginning her presidential bid, has some campaign-trail historical past. There, in 2020, President Biden held a rally the place his onetime Democratic rivals for the nomination endorsed him over an rebel Bernie Sanders in a present of drive for the average wing of their get together.
Now, Ms. Haley is working a Biden-like technique however discovering herself in Mr. Sanders’s place. Nonetheless, she continued to plead her case.
“All the pieces he touches, we lose,” Ms. Haley mentioned, portray Mr. Trump as an agent of “chaos” for Congress, the nation and Republicans’ down-ballot prospects in November.
