NIKKI HALEY TAKES LONGSHOT BID INTO SUPER TUESDAY
Delegate math could be insurmountable after big primary day, pollster says
Nikki Haley mounted a last-ditch, whirlwind tour of the U.S. over the last week and in preparation for Super Tuesday, when the fate of her campaign will be determined by voters in 16 nominating contests.
The former U.N. Ambassador held a rally in Needham on Saturday that followed a morning event in North Carolina. On Sunday, Haley rallied in Vermont, and was due in Maine before heading to Texas for a pair of events scheduled Monday. Last week she also made appearances in Utah, Colorado, Virginia, and Washington D.C.
“Don’t complain about what happens in the general election if you don’t vote in this primary,” she told a ballroom packed full of voters at the Sheraton Boston Needham Hotel, reissuing an admonition she’s delivered frequently on the campaign trail.
To put it kindly, Haley has not been faring well against former President Donald Trump in the race for the Republican nomination, and it just keeps getting worse for the former governor.
While she was speaking in the Bay State, the caucuses were closing in Idaho and Missouri and the Republican Party Convention in Michigan was deciding how to award the unclaimed state delegates remaining after last week’s primary. Haley lost all three contests, adding to the losing streak that started in Iowa and carried through New Hampshire, Nevada, the Virgin Islands, and her home state of South Carolina.
On Sunday night, she gained her first primary victory, winning the vote in Washington, DC, one of the most heavily Democratic jurisdictions in the nation.
She’s done better than polling suggested she might in states where she had time and a ground game on her side, according to Suffolk University professor David Paleologos, the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, but the results out of Michigan
could be telling of her chances on Super Tuesday, when almost a third of the Republican party’s delegates will be up for grabs.
Haley was able to outperform expectations in New Hampshire because she spent months campaigning there alongside the state’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, and in South Carolina, where she had extra time on her side and was additionally benefited by her terms as governor, the pollster said.
She didn’t have nearly as much luck in Michigan, where the primary results matched almost identically with polling averages, Paleologos said, because she didn’t have the time for her team to put in the political ground work.
“You need a ground game to exceed expectations,” Paleologos said. “And that’s going to thin out more on Super Tuesday.”
Voters in North Dakota will cast their ballots on Monday. Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia will hold their elections on Tuesday. Polling doesn’t suggest Haley will win any of those states. Republicans in Washington D.C. voted Sunday.
Trump had won 247 party delegates to Haley’s 24 delegates ahead of the weekend. This week’s elections will add another 903 delegates to the table (plus 19 more from D.C.). A candidate needs 1,215 party delegates to wrap up the nomination.
After Tuesday, Paleologos said, Haley will likely begin doing the math regarding her delegate count and — more to the point — her campaign accounts. She’s likely to reach the logical conclusions and concede, he said.
“She’s an accountant. She knows numbers as well as any pollster,” he said. “She has to come to the realization after Super Tuesday, if the polls are right, that this is the best decision for her short term and long term.”