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Nighty Night, Nikki

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Nikki Haley is going to get buried tonight. It’s a foregone conclusion. The former South Carolina governor will get buried in a delegate avalanche that will be insurmountable, especially now that her donor money is starting to dry up. Her liberal donor base is keeping their checkbooks in their drawers and coat pockets because this race is over, even with Haley winning the DC Primary, which is infested with liberal Republicans who are really Democrats but haven’t gotten around to changing their registrations. It’s a short-lived win, not that it matters. 

Last night, Trump won North Dakota’s GOP caucus, taking all 29 delegates. And he’s going to skewer Ms. Haley on Super Tuesday. So, will her joke of a campaign end this week?

By the delegate math, it’s over. Haley’s ceiling is somewhere in the high 30s. She can break into the 40s, but she’s only been able to do that in states where independents and Democrats are allowed to vote. It’s why New Hampshire was the last redoubt for her, and she failed. Donald Trump is projected to win most, if not all, of tonight’s contests. Even with proportional allocation, as NBC News’ Steve Kornacki noted, 30-40 percent isn’t enough to win for Haley. 

The former UN ambassador then does not honor the RNC pledge to back whoever is the 2024 nominee. She is focused on what’s ahead, not her pervasive humiliation at the hands of Donald Trump. Haley can’t spin these devastating losses as wins anymore, so she deflects, saying she'll answer when Trump is asked if he’d honor the pledge. That’s mental illness: Trump is winning, you’re not, Nikki.

 A part of me feels like this is the ‘Ehrlich Bachman phase’ of Haley's campaign. For those who haven’t watched the HBO comedy, it’s about the trials and tribulations of tech startups in Silicon Valley created by Office Space’s Mike Judge, also known for Beavis and Butt-Head. Bachman is one of the main characters who is written out of the show when he decides to get high in an opium den in Tibet. I feel that’s where Haley is, head in the clouds, drifting into a drug-induced stupor. No sober person thinks she can pull off an epic comeback. There will be no John McCain 2008 turnaround tonight.  

There was a time when I thought Nikki Haley could be the end of the culture wars should she ever win the presidency. If we want to play the Left’s game here, she checks all the boxes they desperately want to mark before us concerning 1600 Penn., but times change. We get that she has all these data points about how unpopular Trump and Biden are and how voters don’t want a 2024 rematch. The problem is she keeps missing the most important point: Republican voters don’t want her. She’s managed to infuriate the base so much that in the worthless Nevada GO primary, Republicans got into their cars, drove to the polls, and voted for ‘none of these candidates,’ which earned more than 60 percent of the vote., Haley lost to no one. If that wasn’t the massive red flag you’re toast, I don’t know what will.  

That beatdown is about to go national tonight. And Haley, a glutton for punishment, seems content with being beaten like Mike Tyson in the ring.