Haley Faces Even Steeper Odds Beyond South Carolina Primary

With the South Carolina primary Saturday and Ambassador Nikki Haley vowing to stay in the race beyond that vote, it looks like the road after South Carolina might be even more unfavorable for the former governor.The most recent polling on South Carolina from Suffolk University and USA Today shows Ms. Haley trailing President Trump 35 percent to 63 percent in her home state, meaning that even if Ms. Haley outperforms expectations, she’s still likely to lose in a state where she served as governor.On Tuesday, Ms. Haley struck a defiant tone at an event in South Carolina, saying that she would campaign “until the last person votes” and pointing out that after Saturday, only four states will have voted.“I’ve been the underdog in every race I’ve ever run. I’ve always been David taking on Goliath,” Ms. Haley said. “And like David, I’m not just fighting someone bigger than me. I’m fighting for something bigger than myself.”While Ms. Haley is vowing to stay in the race through the bitter end, the states coming up immediately after the South Carolina primary don’t look much more favorable to her than her home state.Just less than two weeks after South Carolina’s primary there will be 15 states and one territory voting on Super Tuesday, on March 5. A quick survey of polling in these states finds that Ms. Haley is unlikely to win any of them.A poll of Minnesota voters by Survey USA and sponsored by local news outlets KSTP-TV, KAAL-TV, and WDIO-DT found Ms. Haley was trailing Mr. Trump 14 percent to 76 percent.In Virginia, a recent Morning Consult survey found that Ms. Haley was trailing Mr. Trump 19 percent to 78 percent. In North Carolina, even the most favorable polls, like a recent Capen Analytics survey, found Ms. Haley trailing Mr. Trump 36 percent to 64 percent.In New England states, where Ms. Haley might hope to recapture some of the relative success she enjoyed in New Hampshire, Ms. Haley isn’t faring much better.A recent University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll of Maine GOP primary voters found Mr. Trump leading Ms. Haley 77 percent to 19 percent.In its Vermont poll, the same pollster found that Mr. Trump leads Ms. Haley 61 percent to 31 percent. In Massachusetts, the pollster found Mr. Trump leads 55 percent to 38 percent.In the states that matter most on Super Tuesday — those that command the most delegates in the Republican Party — Ms. Haley is facing a similar situation.In California, an Emerson College survey sponsored by the Hill and Inside California Politics found Mr.Trump leading Ms. Haley 72 percent to 20 percent.Similarly, a YouGov and Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas survey found Mr. Trump leading Ms. Haley 80 percent to 9 percent.In practical terms, if the polls are right, Ms. Haley is not only almost certain to lose the delegate count, but she might not even win the plurality of the vote in a single state, a requirement to have a candidate’s name read at the national party convention.The associate editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, Miles Coleman, tells the Sun that “there are some years this type of delegate bean counting matters and some years that it doesn’t — this is definitely in the latter camp.”“I haven’t gamed it out exactly enough to give you a precise time, but in the smoothest case scenario for Trump, he’d close out March as the presumptive nominee,” Mr. Coleman says.

Haley Faces Even Steeper Odds Beyond South Carolina Primary

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