Was Nikki Haley our last, best hope to stop Donald Trump? Please say it ain’t so | Opinion
I was among the crossover voters in California who held their noses and voted for Nikki Haley on Super Tuesday. We knew her candidacy was a long shot, but given the alternative — a second term for Donald Trump — voting for Haley seemed the least we could do.
I disagree with Haley on a lot issues — too many to list, really — yet I believe she is a decent, reasonable, intelligent person.
She would not, for example, encourage Vladimir Putin to attack our NATO allies. Or insist that she had won an election she actually lost. She would not (allegedly) incite a riot. Or store classified documents in the bathroom of her private home. Or say that she may have “no choice” but to lock up his political opponents.
You see where I’m going with this. The U.S. could survive a Nikki Haley presidency. I’m not so sure about a second Trump presidency, which is why I joined the GOP so I could, ironically, vote against their presumed nominee.
Unfortunately, few voters were willing to do the same — possibly because they believed Biden stood a better chance of beating Trump than Haley. Yet Biden’s prospects against Trump are clouded by polls showing Trump ahead of the president.
Consider the recent New York Times/Siena College poll. It had Trump at 48% and Biden at 43%. (Another 10% didn’t know or wouldn’t say.)
There were other ominous take-aways from the poll: 61% of voters who supported Biden in the 2020 election said they believe he is too old to be an effective president, and 45% of Democrats did not think Biden should be the party’s nominee in 2024.
No need to panic!
That’s grim news for anti-Trumpers, yet Democratic Party leaders — along with some pundits — are counseling us to remain calm.
“We have a growing economy, record low unemployment, we’ve got a booming investment in our infrastructure — I would rather be on our side than theirs because all they have is Trump and his problems that he brings along with it,” Tom Fulks, the chair of the San Luis Obispo County Democratic Party, said on a recent KVEC talk radio show.
Yet Trump’s “problems” do not appear to faze his supporters within the Republican party, although there is a glimmer of good news: The size of Trump’s support among Republicans may be eroding. NBC exit polls on Tuesday showed that 35 percent of GOP voters in North Carolina won’t guarantee that they will vote for their party nominee in November. In Virginia it was at 36 percent.
Democratic leaders, meanwhile, remain maddeningly complacent. Polls are often wrong, they say. We are underestimating Biden, they say. Besides, the election isn’t until November. There’s still plenty of time things to turn around!
Do they not recall what happened in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was “supposed” to win the presidency? Do they not remember what happened during those four awful years when Trump was in charge? Do they actually expect us to keep calm and carry on?
‘Totally unhinged’
As much as we like to believe that every vote matters, in big elections it takes a critical mass of votes to make a real difference.
Despite an organized campaign to encourage crossover voting for Haley, that critical mass failed to materialize on Super Tuesday — except in Vermont.
In California, however, it was a different story; as of Wednesday morning, Trump was leading with nearly 79% of the vote.
Faced with insurmountable losses, Nikki Haley suspended her campaign.
“I have no regrets,” she said. “Although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in.”
That’s deflating, yet inspiring at the same time. I may not like her politics, but I admire Haley for staying in the fight long after the other contenders had given up.
Nor did she shy away from calling Trump what he is: “totally unhinged.”
She’s exactly right. That’s why we can’t give up, no matter how discouraging the situation may seem.
Nikki Halley may have lost, but there’s still hope.
After all, a lot can happen between now and November.
This column has been updated.
