No. of Recommendations: 5
I think Nikki Haley has every reason to drag this on as long as she can. She could lose every state from here to the convention, but if something happens to Donald Trump (criminal conviction, drops dead of a heart attack, starts showing even more severe cognitive decline etc.) by remaining in the race, Haley would have the best claim to be the nominee.
I think her staying in the race is just betting on something catastrophic happening to Trump, and that might not be a bad bet.
As we discussed in the other thread, I think this overlook the procedures and mechanics of how these conventions work. Under modern nominating rules, the delegates who actually go to a convention are (mostly) pledged to a particular candidate, so who the delegates are doesn't have much of an effect on who the nominee is in normal circumstances. However, the delegates are still chosen through a process.
About a quarter are chosen by the candidate's campaign, the rest are chosen by state convention committees - which are pretty Trump-y and MAGA these days. Those delegates are going to be very Trumpy crowd, the overwhelming majority will come from the MAGA wing of the party.
That's not a convention that's going to pick Haley if she doesn't have a majority of pledged delegates. So her "I'm the back-up" is only viable until about mid-March. After that, slightly more than half of the delegates will have been pledged to Trump - so if he drops dead after that, she won't have enough pledged delegates to prevail at the convention. If Trump's got the majority, his delegates will (presumably) be released from their pledges and can vote for who they want. They are probably not going to pick Haley, and have no obligation to do so just because she's still an active candidate. Most likely they'd pick De Santis, maybe someone else - but Trumpworld is going to hate Haley by then, so she's unlikely to be the choice.
So this is a very short-term play, and really only if Trump dies. He's not going to be convicted before April (and he'd probably keep running anyway), and even if he starts to suffer more severe cognitive decline he (or his family) will still want him to be in control of the convention, so he's not dropping out.
