Nikki Haley’s bid for the GOP nomination is over; her No Labels run could be just starting

It is over. There is no longer any way Nikki Haley can win enough delegates on Super Tuesday GOP primaries to win the GOP nomination.

But her name might still be on your November ballot as the presidential candidate of the No Labels party.

This Friday, No Labels will hold a virtual convention to find a candidate for November. Haley is the number one prospect.

Joe Cunningham, a former Democratic congressman and the 2022 nominee for South Carolina governor, is now the political director of No Labels. He recently said that Haley remains someone with “broad appeal to independents, Democrats, Republicans.”

Haley has so far dismissed interest from the No Labels team. Her campaign has indicated Haley “is perfectly happy with the Republican label.” And if she ditched the GOP for the general election this year, she knows it will do fatal damage to her reputation with Republicans ahead of the 2028 presidential race.

Haley is already alienating Trump-loving Republicans by refusing to get out of the nomination contest despite repeated losses to Trump.

“I feel no need to kiss the ring,” she famously said in a speech explaining why she remains in the GOP race. “I have no fear of Trump’s retribution.”

By staying in the race, she has become Trump’s chief GOP critic.

Haley is slamming Trump for undermining U.S. support for Ukraine and praising Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

She has described Trump as “distracted” by his many court cases.

Trump’s policies will “bankrupt Social Security,” she said.

And she has charged that he plans to use the Republican National Committee as a “piggy bank,” to pay legal bills.

“Donald Trump’s not watching out for the Republican Party,” she told a crowd in Michigan last week. “H’s not watching out for America. He’s watching out for himself.”

She has also pointed out Trump’s many confused statements and called for a test of mental fitness for candidates over 75, a standard that would include Trump as well as President Biden.

Her distance from Trump’s far-right rhetoric enhances her credentials as a moderate.

Can she transfer that image into an independent candidacy with No Labels?

Haley is already attracting support from moderate and conservative Republicans who voted for her in the GOP primaries.

Those are voters who, political strategists predict, are otherwise likely to stay home or reluctantly vote for Trump.

But with Haley on the general election ballot, there would be a high-profile alternative for moderates on the right looking to avoid voting for the former president.

In the Iowa GOP caucuses, New Hampshire primary and South Carolina, most of Haley’s voters said they will not vote for Trump in November.

In Iowa, 70 percent of Haley’s caucusgoers said Trump will never get their vote. In New Hampshire, it was 75 percent. And in South Carolina, 60 percent of Haley’s voters said they are never-Trump.

In the South Carolina GOP primary, more than half of Haley’s support came from people who identified themselves as independents, according to a Fox News Voter Analysis.

Haley beat the former president by 11 percentage points among independent voters in South Carolina, according to polls. She also won among first-time voters.

While losing in South Carolina, she still beat expectations by getting nearly 40 percent of the vote.

And despite her struggles, Haley raised $16.5 million in January. Up until last week, she had the financial support of billionaire Charles Koch’s influential network of donors and right-wing activists. 

Time and again, she has revealed a deep fracture in the party with “at least one-third of GOP primary voters,” according to the Fox polls, saying they “prefer someone else [other than Trump].”

Haley’s campaign has described that divide within the party as a giant hole in their ship, a GOP Titanic.

But her alarming messages about impending damage to the party to voters was not enough to defeat Trump, who got close to 60 percent of the vote in South Carolina. 

She explained her decision to keep running by saying she doesn’t “believe Donald Trump can beat Joe Biden.”

Yet, after another major loss in her home state, Haley said the defeat was not “the end of our story,’ and promised to keep running through Super Tuesday.

Now the question is whether she will end her campaign after Super Tuesday.

An independent campaign under No Labels is one way to keep the party rolling.

But other Republicans have said ‘No Thanks.’

Larry Hogan, the Republican former Governor of Maryland, has instead opted for a Senate run.

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin has also taken a pass, even as he champions bipartisanship.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is already running as an independent. But he has not gained traction because of views too far outside the mainstream for even progressive Democrats.

In general, Democrats are hostile to third-party presidential bids because they remember how Jill Stein and Gary Johnson siphoned off votes in swing states when Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016.  

Now, No Labels is looking at Haley.

But what about “sore loser,” laws that might keep a candidate who lost a major party primary off the ballot?

No Labels says they already have a spot for her on the ballot in 16 states and are optimistic about getting on the ballot in all 50 states. 

If she dives in, my bet is that Haley gets most of her votes from Republicans.

Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.