OPINION:
Despite a last-ditch Hail Mary by Democratic donors, liberal crossover votes and RINOs, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s campaign cratered for good on Tuesday night in New Hampshire with a double-digit loss to former President Donald Trump.
While Ms. Haley tried to frame her defeat as some victory, it’s clear she has no path to anything other than spending more donor money and finishing a distant second.
And Ms. Haley’s second-place finish on Tuesday night is even more irrelevant considering the voter analysis data showing that a majority of her New Hampshire voters aren’t even registered Republicans. Ms. Haley won just 25% of the vote from self-described Republicans in New Hampshire. That was an improvement from her abysmal 15% support from Republicans in Iowa.
In an interview on MSNBC, a Haley voter admitted he would never vote for her in a general election but saw the primary as a “strategic” opportunity to vote against Mr. Trump.
And did anyone else notice that in Ms. Haley’s remarks in New Hampshire, the rowdy crowd became suspiciously quieter when Ms. Haley vowed to defeat President Biden in November?
I wonder why.
If it wasn’t obvious after Iowa, it surely is obvious now: Mr. Trump will be the Republican nominee, and he dominated this primary in historic fashion.
He’s the first Republican ever to win three New Hampshire primaries, and the first nonincumbent in decades to win both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
The other campaigns were never within striking distance. They never controlled the narrative, they never saw the momentum, and they never galvanized the America First base like Mr. Trump.
While many obituaries will be written about Ms. Haley or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign, it can be summed up in just a few words: no energy, no enthusiasm and no coherent message.
For Mr. DeSantis, going from door to door in Iowa came across like more of a chore than an opportunity to lift his presence with voters there.
For Ms. Haley, rehearsed political platitudes like “This is bigger than Ukraine. This is a war about freedom” were likely popular with donors and Washington inner circles but drastically disconnected from the vast majority of the Republican base.
Not to mention that the former South Carolina governor struggled to think on her feet when asked a simple question about the cause of the Civil War.
The point is: For all the prognostications that the indictments would push primary voters away from Mr. Trump, or that not doing the debates would turn them off, or attacking his opponents would backfire — it all once again shows that he defies the conventional wisdom, defies “experts and defies political gravity.
Because Mr. Trump’s mission to Make America Great Again matters more than ever.
The people choose their president, not the courts, not prosecutors, not the opposition party, and not the bureaucracy.
On the issues that matter most, Mr. Trump has a record of success.
In his administration, before COVID-19 shut down the world, wages were rising, unemployment was falling, and economic opportunity was flourishing.
Our border was as secure as ever. And our world was safer and more secure.
There were no new wars. ISIS was obliterated. The world’s top terrorists were eliminated.
In short, life was better under Mr. Trump.
The other candidates had their chance to make their pitch to voters. But they choose Mr. Trump.
So while Ms. Haley is vowing to keep burning through donor cash to run in her home state of South Carolina, where both senators and the governor have endorsed Mr. Trump — and the Nevada caucus, where she’s not even on the ballot — we can definitively say that this primary cycle is over and that the former president is dominating in historic fashion.
For the entrenched D.C. wannabe aristocrats, it’s yet another reminder that their influence over voters is waning and their control of Washington is in its last days.
Nikki Haley was their last hope to retreat to the politics of old, where the interests of the Washington political class came before the people who voted for them.
So, as the swamp sings its off-pitch swan song in the last hours of this primary, Donald Trump and the America First movement are ready to defeat President Biden in November.
• Kimberly Guilfoyle hosts “The Kimberly Guilfoyle Show” on Rumble.
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