Nikki Haley is 'an unwilling avatar of a movement she doesn’t like': Ex-GOP strategist

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is the only Republican still willing to challenge former President Donald Trump for the 2024 nomination — and yet she is far behind the former president, and with Trump's win in Michigan, her hopes of catching up to him appear to be fading fast as she is running out of options for states where she could plausibly defeat him.

One reason for that might be she can't even be honest with herself about who the people supporting her campaign are, former Republican consultant Amanda Carpenter suggested on X Wednesday morning.

"The frustrating thing about Nikki Haley is that she isn’t willing to own the loose coalition of pro-democracy Never Trumpers, moderates, and Dems showing up to vote for her," wrote Carpenter. "She is an unwilling avatar of a movement she doesn’t like."

"Let me explain," she continued. "The people who are voting for Haley are most willing to break with the party over Trump, with some help from non-Republicans. She isn’t willing to break with the party over Trump, is allergic to Never Trumpers, and is hostile to Dems. See the problem? How WEIRD is it that she is being boosted by a coalition she steels herself to ignore. Since when do candidates go to so much effort to ignore their actual base, or even show disdain for it. It’s so strange. But that’s Haley."

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"That said, it’s great she’s in," Carpenter added. "I admire her tenacity and am thankful for all the wonderful data that is being produced from her run to show what the durability of what I believe is the pro-democracy coalition that has yet to be organized and recognized for long-lasting change."

Haley has vowed to stay into the race until at least the "Super Tuesday" contests in March, when a huge chunk of states around the country all vote in their primaries at once. She has been cagey about whether she will support Trump in the event he wins the nomination, despite having taken a pledge to support the eventual nominee as a condition of qualifying for the GOP debates — which, ironically, Trump himself never participated in.