‘I Refuse To Quit’: Nikki Haley Vows To Stay In GOP Race Against Donald Trump

Nikki Haley, the final candidate standing between Donald Trump and the GOP nomination, doubled down on her dedication to remain within the presidential race past the first in her house state this weekend, amid the newest spherical of damaging polling for her marketing campaign and a scathing new memo from Trump’s advisors.

“Some of you, perhaps a few of you in the media, came here today to see if I’m dropping out of the race. Well, I’m not… I refuse to quit,” Haley mentioned in Greensboro, South Carolina, squashing hypothesis that she known as a last-minute press convention to announce the top of her marketing campaign.

Instead, Haley laced Trump and the politicians who help Trump in public however secretly oppose him behind the scenes.

“Of course, many of the same politicians who now publicly embrace Trump, privately dread him,” she mentioned. “They know what a disaster he’s been and will continue to be for our party. They’re just too afraid to say it out loud. Well, I’m not afraid to say the hard truth out loud. I feel no need to kiss the ring. I have no fear of Trump’s retribution.”

The former South Carolina governor — Trump’s first nominee for the function of ambassador to the United Nations — has gone all out in her criticism of the previous president for the reason that race was a two-person matchup in New Hampshire.

“True to form, he’s taking out his anger on others,” Haley mentioned. “He’s getting meaner and more offensive by the day. He’s trying to bully me and anyone who supports me. He says they’ll be barred from MAGA permanently. That’s not the way you win elections.”

Haley in current days has attacked Trump for staying silent on the homicide of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny and for his endorsement of MAGA loyalists to guide the Republican National Committee earlier than he’s even secured the GOP nomination, arguing that she doesn’t need the RNC to turn out to be “Trump’s legal defense fund.” Trump is on the hook for almost half a billion {dollars} in civil judgments, and has beforehand tapped his marketing campaign to pay a few of his authorized charges.

But Trump’s marketing campaign predicted Haley’s demise in a brand new memo on Tuesday, projecting that Trump would clear the delegate threshold required to turn out to be the GOP presidential nominee as early as Mach 12, after voters in 21 states head to the polls.

“We won’t bore you with the reams of data that show an ass-kicking in the making in South Carolina, but we will show you the very serious math problem Nikki Haley has. This is the diagnosis she refuses to accept: The end is near,” Trump marketing campaign advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wrote within the memo, which was shared with the media.

Even if their math is off and Haley manages to overperform in upcoming primaries in states like California and Michigan on Super Tuesday, March 5, the percentages are stacked closely towards her. Trump continues to dominate in polls of the race and every contest will solely add to his delegate haul, including to the sense of inevitability round his marketing campaign.

A Suffolk University/USA Today survey of doubtless voters launched Tuesday discovered Trump main Haley 2-1 — 63% to 35% — within the state the place she served as governor from 2011 to 2017. (Haley stepped down from that workplace earlier than the top of her remaining time period to turn out to be Trump’s U.N. ambassador.)

Haley’s solely hope of shaking up the race at this level could also be exterior to the GOP — Trump faces 91 felony expenses, together with ones stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which he misplaced. But even the potential for jail time hasn’t shaken his maintain on GOP voters and elected officers.

“The true ‘State’ of Nikki Haley’s campaign?” LaCivita and Wiles added within the memo. “Broken down, out of ideas, out of gas, and completely outperformed by every measure, by Donald Trump.”

Haley’s marketing campaign is something however out of fuel, nonetheless. She raised $17 million final quarter, simply $2 million shy of Trump’s $19 million haul in the identical time interval. She has a strong $14 million money readily available and a giant fundraising swing deliberate in Super Tuesday major states within the coming weeks.

And all of Haley’s money will permit her to proceed a marketing campaign denying Trump entry to the large checks out there to his doubtless Democratic opponent. President Joe Biden, who has fashioned joint fundraising committees with the DNC and state Democratic events to gather as much as $929,600 from a single donor. Until he clinches the nomination, Trump is proscribed to the traditional federal restrict of $3,300.

Biden introduced Tuesday he raised $42 million in January and has $130 million readily available. Trump and Haley have but to announce their January fundraising.

“People have a right to have their voices heard, and they deserve a real choice,” Haley mentioned on Tuesday. “Not a Soviet-style election where there’s only one candidate and gets 99% of the vote.

“We don’t anoint kings in this country,” she continued. “We have elections and Donald Trump of all people should know we don’t rig elections.”