I’ve been reflecting on the results from this weekend. While it’s true that home-state candidates are supposed to win their states, nobody expected Nikki Haley to do this well a few weeks ago. It doesn’t present a new path for her candidacy to succeed. But it’s absolutely a showing, like Pat Buchanan’s in New Hampshire in 1992, that demonstrates a fundamental split in the party and a weakness of the general-election candidate.
In 1992, there was a third-party candidate that took up some of Buchanan’s themes on trade and globalization. There were prophecies in the Buchanan and Ross Perot campaigns, but prophets are not honored in their own time. Americans had a much higher level of trust in their institutions in the aftermath of the Cold War and the success of Desert Storm. If the leaders of those institutions believed that globalization would mostly bring benefits, the people were ready to follow, on the whole.
Right now, RFK Jr. and Cornel West are presenting themselves as third-party candidates. But both of them appeal to antiestablishment themes of distrust in our institutions, the same way Donald Trump does. I think Haley is smart to continue campaigning for as long as she can. Her performance highlights Trump’s need for “her people” and therefore her suitability for the Republican ticket (whatever the two candidates have said about each other). Otherwise, it leaves her presiding over a coherent and well-funded faction of the party, ready to fight for control of the Republican future should Trump lose again in 2024.
Either way, it shows that Trump has to do much more to attract suburban moms with degrees or some college education into his fold and away from the Democrats.