Dem
51
GOP
49
Yesterday, Nikki Haley, Donald Trump's final opponent, bowed to the inevitable and announced that she was suspending her campaign. She didn't endorse her former boss, but she also didn't endorse Joe Biden or anyone else. She put the ball in Trump's court by saying it was up to him to win over her voters.
A profile in courage this is not. How about a profile in cowardice? Her whole campaign for weeks has been about how Trump is totally unfit to be president. So instead of endorsing Biden and committing to doing everything she can to see that the unfit person never becomes president, she weasels out of it and tells Trump to effectively moderate his views and style and be less mean to attract her voters. He's never going to do that of course, because the viciousness and cruelty is the whole point of it all.
Why the cop-out? Well, she has visions of swooping in and capturing the 2028 nomination for herself. Denouncing Trump would make that impossible, as his base would never forgive her. So she told Trump to earn the support of her voters and washed her hands of the whole thing. In other words, if America becomes a dictatorship, it's not her fault. She disengaged from the process.
Joe Biden reacted quickly to Haley's statement, inviting her supporters to join his team. Biden said: "Donald Trump made it clear he doesn't want Nikki Haley supporters. I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign." That's probably true. In fact, a lot of them are already there. A substantial number of Haley's voters were Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, especially in states where independents or all voters could vote in the Republican primary. They were already planning to vote for Biden in the general election.
A bigger question is: What will Haley's Republican voters do? There were plenty of pieces about that yesterday, including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and ABC News. Each outlet spoke with a few dozen Haley supporters and they are all over the map. Some will come home and vote for Trump in the end, some will go for Biden, and some are not sure. But again, not all of them are actual Republicans so the number of Haley supporters who are actually Republicans and might not vote for Trump is probably fairly small. History shows that most of the time the supporters of a losing candidate in the primaries eventually come around to supporting their party's nominee, especially when there is so much time left to get over the feeling of losing.
While we are on the subject of cowardice, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) yesterday endorsed Donald Trump, despite knowing that he is totally unfit to be president and despite having fought against him for years. The two men haven't spoken in over 3 years and McConnell has blamed Trump for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. At this point, McConnell's career is almost over and instead of going out with a bang by refusing to endorse Trump and maybe having a legacy of being a turtle with a spine as well as a shell, he decided to go out with a whimper. After all, at this point there is nothing Trump could do to punish McConnell, yet McConnell still refused to put country above party. Nope, all that matters is the party. Not only is it turtles all the way down, it is also partisanship all the way down.
Finally, to celebrate national drop-out day, Dean Phillips also dropped out yesterday. Apparently, he saw the writing on the wall when he managed only a third-place finish in his own home state. His withdrawal was about 2 months too late, but better late than never. (V)