It's a serious question.
Nikki Haley's campaign ended a month ago, yet she simply refuses to acknowledge reality. She was hoping for a close second in Iowa -- and came in third. Ron DeSantis saw the writing on the wall and got out before New Hampshire. I have no idea what possessed her to keep going, save for the hope that South Carolina, her home state, would do for her what it did for Biden in 2020. But poll after poll shows that just isn't happening, and she's on course for a humiliating defeat (she could lose by as much as 30 points).
DeSantis, unlike Haley, had a shot at one point, but it was clear as time progressed that it wasn't his time. "If there was anything I could do to produce a favorable outcome — more campaign stops, more interviews — I would do it," he said in remarks announcing the suspension of his campaign. "But I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don’t have a clear path to victory.
Ron DeSantis understood that continuing his campaign was a fool's errand because he understood what Republican voters were telling him. "It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance," he noted. "They watched his presidency get stymied by relentless resistance, and they see Democrats using lawfare to this day to attack him."
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Why is Nikki Haley asking her supporters to spend time and money when she clearly has no path to victory? Why doesn't she understand that GOP primary voters want Trump to get the second term he was previously denied? When it was announced that she was going to deliver a "State of the Race" speech in South Carolina on Tuesday, it would have made perfect sense to assume she was ending her presidential campaign. What purpose does she have in continuing on, and why go through the humiliation of losing her home state, the state she served as governor? Yes, we're still early, but there's no way she can turn things around.
She knows the race is over. So why isn't she calling it quits?
For the answer to that question, we should look at something she said a couple days earlier.
On Sunday, during a Fox News town hall event in South Carolina, Haley indicated that she would pardon Trump if he's convicted of a federal crime.
"I would pardon Donald Trump because I think it's important for the country to move on," she said. "We've got to leave the negativity… behind."
It's true that Trump does have multiple legal issues he's fighting off. It's also true that some appear to be crumbling, but there still remains a chance that one of these blatantly partisan prosecutions could result in a conviction. I dare say Haley's refusal to leave the race is based on the idea that the longer she stays in, the better positioned she will be to be the Trump alternative if he becomes legally barred from serving as president again.
Will it work? It's doubtful. Her refusal to leave the race is seen more as an act of disloyalty that not only destroyed any chance she had of being named Trump's running mate, but destroyed her chances of having Trump's supporters coalesce behind her in a worst-case scenario where a partisan jury convicts him of one of the bogus crimes he's accused of. Frankly, if that happens, they'll coalesce around the guy who got out when she should have: Ron DeSantis.
