New troubles for Nikki Haley. After yet another defeat suffered last Saturday in South Carolina, the former ambassador lost the support of the powerful network of financiers, gravitating around the billionaire Charles Koch: Americans for Prosperity. The latter has in fact announced that he will stop financing the Republican candidate, despite the fact that he continued to guarantee her support after her defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire.
This is a hard blow for the Haley. Let's be clear: the former ambassador still has significant amounts of money to spend on the electoral campaign. However, the farewell of Koch it is harmful for her in terms of image. A problem that adds to the disappointing results that you have achieved so far during the Republican primaries: from the meager third place in Iowa to the humiliation of Nevada, where you received fewer votes than the “none of these candidates” option. Without obviously neglecting South Carolina: her home state, of which she was also governor, where she was separated from Donald Trump by about 20 points.
It should also be noted as the support of Koch at the Haley was characterized by some strangeness. The billionaire, historic financier of the Republican Party, is a libertarian who advocates a policy that is not excessively hostile towards Russia and China. The exact opposite of the former ambassador who, on the contrary, calls for a hard line towards Moscow and Beijing. The suspicion is then that Koch had bet on Haley with the sole purpose of putting a spoke in the wheels of Trump, with whom he is on bad terms. However, after her candidate's repeated defeats, she preferred to withdraw her financial support and concentrate her resources on the electoral campaign for the Senate.
On the other hand, the only thing that can be excluded is the obstinacy of the Haley not to take a step back even though the inability to win has so far been fueled by Koch. If this were the case, the former ambassador risks having ruined her political future. Remaining on the field after the defeat in New Hampshire could in fact have compromised her career Haley. Up until New Hampshire, in fact, it made sense for him to remain in the running: after all, it was precisely on that state that he had bet heavily to get his campaign off the ground. Yet not only did he fail there but, according to the polls, it was clear that he had no chance of reversing the situation in either Nevada or South Carolina. Wisdom would therefore have wanted the Haley would withdraw and choose between two options: either negotiate a vice presidential bid alongside Trump or give up the oars, focusing on the defeat of the former president and on a new candidacy in 2028. By remaining in the race, the former ambassador instead continued to remedy electoral humiliations, ending up pointed out by large sectors of the republican base as a sort of ally of the Democrats. She and she is now at a dead end.
Today we will vote in Michigan, where a poll of TheHill move forward Trump by more than 50 points. And the situation does not change for the states where they will vote on March 5th on Super Tuesday. In short, the campaign of Haley It really seems one step away from collapse. And heavy clouds are beginning to hover over his political future too.
