John Podhoretz has a plausible and, I believe, correct theory of Haley’s campaign: She’s running as the one who will be able to tell us she warned us that Trump would lose.
There are two problems with this approach, though (and to be clear, John is not endorsing it, just describing it). One is that there is no guarantee that Trump will lose.
The other is that even if he does, it’s hard to see Haley’s warnings accruing to her benefit in 2028. As Dan pointed out the other day, she is not the leader of a movement that is going to endure no matter what as Bernie Sanders is. Nor is she creating Haley acolytes who are intensely bonded to her personally. It’s a long time till 2028, and at that point, it will have been ten years since Haley was U.N. ambassador and all sorts of new Republican figures will have emerged or grown bigger (think J. D. Vance or Sarah Huckabee Sanders). Even if Republican voters are ready to quit on Trump after a second loss, they won’t necessarily appreciate being told that they were wrong and predictably wrong.
So, it seems to me that the continued Haley campaign makes the most sense purely as a way to make a point, rather than as a jumping-off point for a 2028 campaign if Biden wins reelection.