LOWCOUNTRY, S.C. — To be at a Nikki Haley rally at this second within the GOP presidential main is an train in suspending actuality.
For an hour you need to think about that Haley’s candidacy has confirmed to be fascinating for Republican voters outdoors of those very area of interest occasions — crammed largely with dedicated Haley supporters who are likely to visibly recoil on the point out of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And you need to fake that her supporters, corralled into blandly interchangeable occasion areas, characterize something however a small, exhausted faction of the Republican Celebration. And you need to imagine, as Haley appears to, {that a} aggressive main continues to be underway for the nomination, and {that a} path to that nomination exists for her with Trump nonetheless within the race.
However Haley makes it simple to take a trip from actuality, if just for a day in South Carolina.
On Thursday, simply two days from South Carolina’s main election day, Haley drew a crowd of largely older and virtually completely white retirees to the dockside patio of a brand new boutique lodge within the quaint downtown of Georgetown, South Carolina, about an hour’s drive up the coast from Charleston, alongside a freeway dotted with tiny ramshackle constructions belonging to the area’s celebrated basket-weaving artisans.
Haley supporters — a number of of whom mentioned they’d already forged early ballots her in Saturday’s main — wandered in and saddled as much as the money bar, sampled handed hors d’oeuvres (free of charge), and took within the crisp ocean breeze below an overcast sky. Many wore Haley’s nautical-navy marketing campaign tees below their windbreakers and sipped plastic cups of chardonnay. A border collie named Ralphie (additionally in a tee) roamed the premises off-leash.
The coolness vibes, nevertheless, belied the very severe considerations of the individuals who imagine that a minimum of the destiny of democracy is on the poll in November. This was Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville” for a politically engaged group of By no means Trumpers and By no means Bideners representing a major phase of voters nationally who dread the idea of getting to vote for both candidate once more in November, and who see Haley as their final hope.
“They’re each too previous, in my view, and I’m their age so I can say that,” declared a retired 76-year-old named Mikki Huss, who joked about having a reputation practically equivalent to Haley’s. “It could be horrible,” Huss mentioned, to have each Trump and Biden on the poll once more. “I simply — I can’t. I can’t vote for Biden. His vp shouldn’t be match for the job. Trump’s loopy. Let’s be sincere, it actually isn’t a lot of a alternative, is it?”
As a result of, to many of those voters, Haley represents the one approach out of this binary, her weak head-to-head polling with Trump in a state the place she was twice elected governor is mentioned in hush tones, or with anger towards the media for all however declaring Trump the presumptive nominee.
However not like the MAGA loyalists who reside completely in Trump’s deluded actuality, the Haley supporters who spoke with HuffPost over the course of two days this week understood there can be a time after they’d be pressured to decide on — Trump, Biden, or nobody.
Huss mentioned she’d most likely find yourself writing-in Haley. “You are able to do that,” she mentioned. “I nonetheless simply assume she’s the suitable particular person for the job.”
The race isn’t over, although, and gained’t be till Saturday or later if Haley stays in a minimum of by way of Tremendous Tuesday on March 5, when 15 states and one U.S. territory vote in winner-takes-all primaries. Trump’s advisors are taunting Haley with their predictions that Trump might successfully lock up the requisite variety of delegates to clinch the nomination inside a month, giving Haley no believable path except Trump is sidelined by his authorized troubles or a well being emergency.
“She’s going to have a really unhealthy day tomorrow as a result of she’s not a pleasant particular person,” the previous president predicted at a rally Friday in Rock Hill, the place he was launched by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, the previous lieutenant governor below Haley — one of many many South Carolina officers who’re behind Trump.
Haley doesn’t dwell a lot on the mechanics of the race in her stump speech, though a candidate who as soon as bragged about by no means dropping an election has a approach of spinning her most up-to-date defeats into successes. “They mentioned we wouldn’t make it to Iowa, and we got here inside 1% of second place,” Haley mentioned of her third place end final month to Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who dropped out earlier than the subsequent contest in New Hampshire, the place Haley got here in second. “We don’t anoint kings in America, we’ve got elections,” Haley declared, using a line that’s now change into a staple of her stump speech. “And after two states, there’s no approach we’re gonna title him the nominee.”
Lots of Haley’s supporters are doing their very own model of election math. Margaret Carroll, a 73-year-old retired trainer who voted for Biden in 2020, mentioned his age and lack of power now make one other vote for him onerous to justify. “If it’s between Haley and Biden, I might vote for Haley,” she mentioned. “If it’s between Biden and Trump, I might vote for Biden.” Carroll thought Haley was a great governor and likes that as a presidential candidate she’s “sensible, world and sees the large image.”
Carroll additionally likes that Haley was “by no means filled with it as governor” and appears to have a spine. However what about if Haley finally ends up dropping out and endorsing Trump, after dedicating the closing days of her marketing campaign right here to portray Trump as a menace to the GOP and a hazard to world safety? “Effectively, my considered her would go down,” Carroll mentioned. “That may be a giant upset for the individuals who say she has extra integrity. If she did that, it could present that she didn’t.”
At her South Carolina occasions, Haley has been launched by a sequence of native county prosecutors — not celebration leaders who usually tend to be in lockstep with Trump and MAGA — who reward her as a level-headed chief who championed legal guidelines and different sensible reform measures that aimed to address domestic violence as South Carolina’s first feminine governor.
Charleston County Solicitor Scarlett Wilson launched Haley in Georgetown. Wilson, a Republican, was the DA who prosecuted the cop convicted of killing Walter Scott, the unarmed Black man who died in 2015 after being shot within the again 5 occasions. “I used to be ready on the decision for attempting that cop, and I used to be on the telephone with Nikki Haley, her explaining to me what was happening, her asking me what we would have liked,” recalled Wilson, who additionally lauded Haley for presiding over the elimination of the Accomplice flag from the South Carolina Statehouse two years later — a difficulty that Haley has nearly erased from her bio as governor.
Scarlett’s point out of that interval and the tepid applause despatched the truth of the South Carolina main crashing again all the way down to earth.
I requested Wilson after the occasion why it’s been onerous for Republicans in Haley’s own residence state to vote for her over Trump, and like lots of Haley’s supporters, she shrugged and sighed.
“The revisionist historical past for Haley as governor is simply beautiful to me. Possibly they’ll do a examine on it someday as a result of I simply don’t get it,” Wilson mentioned after the occasion, shouting over Bon Jovi’s “Who Says You Can’t Go Dwelling.”
Wilson known as a Trump-Biden rematch a “catastrophe for each side,” and mentioned she’s “very involved about that. It’s not a great state of affairs, however we’ve got another. We will develop the celebration and we will develop the conservative motion.”
However what is going to she do when she’s doubtless pressured to vote for both Trump or Biden in November?
“I’ve already gotten my poll!” she mentioned — referring, nevertheless, to the first.
What concerning the normal?
Wilson caught the gaze of somebody simply over my shoulder.
“Oh, it’ll be nice,” she mumbled, scooting away.
