If and when Nikki Haley acknowledges the obvious that there’s no way short of a surprise event that she’ll wrest the GOP nomination away from Donald J. Trump, she could have another opportunity to run for the presidency.
The centrist group No Labels is still looking for a third-party candidate and the former South Carolina governor could fit the bill for a big name that could lure voters with efforts to put together a ticket still in flux with a number of names having been reported.
One who likely won’t be the No Labels candidate was waffling West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin who may have dealt the group a major blow when he announced that he won’t be launching a White House run, so Haley would seem to be the best option.
The organization’s national director Joe Cunningham appeared on “Fox & Friends Sunday” where he expressed interest in hooking up with Haley if she decides to end her Republican bid, an unlikely prospect with the big donor money continuing to sluice into her coffers, much of it from Democrats.
(Video: Fox News)
“The truth is, we’re talking to a lot of spectacular people right now, and we’re not ready to unveil those folks just yet,” he told Fox News host Will Cain.
“This has been a project to essentially give Americans another choice if they’re unhappy with the presumptive nominees,” he continued. “Which, you know, it appears it’s going to be Trump vs. Biden right now, but we don’t know. Nikki Haley, she’s remaining in the race. You can’t count her out completely. And hats off to her for staying in and for sticking with it.”
“But we’re looking for great quality people, and folks that have broad an appeal to independents, Democrats, Republicans, and, yeah, I mean, Nikki Haley’s somebody we’d definitely be interested in,” Cunningham said, adding that the timeline for making the pick would be after Super Tuesday on March 5.
“We won’t be making a decision before Super Tuesday,” he said. “We’ve said from the onset that after Super Tuesday we’re gonna look at who the presumptive nominees are and if the vast majority of Americans are unhappy with those and we feel that we can put forward a ticket or offer our ballot line to candidates who can win, then we’re gonna offer that ballot line.”
Despite Trump’s sound thumping of her in Saturday’s South Carolina primary, a humiliating result when not enough Democrats showed up in the open primary state to make her competitive, Haley was defiant, insisting that she isn’t going anywhere.
“I’m a woman of my word. I’m not giving up this fight when a majority of Americans disapprove of both Trump and Biden,” she wrote on X after she was walloped. “In the next 10 days, 21 states and territories will speak. They have the right to a real choice, not a Soviet-style election with only one candidate. And I have a duty to give them that choice.”
Also mentioned as a possible No Labels candidate is failed GOP presidential candidate Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) as well as former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, neither of whom are very inspiring.
“We are Democrats, Republicans, and independents, with different political opinions. Sometimes, we have serious disagreements over policies. But one thing we all share is a commitment to respect those differences and to find areas of common ground so we can move the country forward,” No Labels states on its website.
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