- Nikki Haley is not the first presidential candidate to lose her home state.
- Recent candidates, including Sens. Marco Rubio and Elizabeth Warren, have suffered similar fates.
- Not everyone who suffers such a loss is able to restart their career afterwards.
You can’t always go home.
Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley learned this the hard way after losing the South Carolina Republican presidential primary.
This doesn’t have to be the end. While some former presidential candidates have dropped out before suffering a similar fate, a few have accepted the negative headlines and continued their careers. One of them, George H.W. Bush, lost his adopted home state of Texas and later won the presidency itself. However, based on recent comments from both sides, it seems highly unlikely that Ms. Haley will join President Trump.
Still, Hailey vowed earlier this week to keep going no matter what.
Trump knows some of her pain, but he should have at least become the nominee of a major party before suffering a defeat like this. Trump, a native New Yorker in her own right, lost the Empire State in both 2016 and 2020. Many of the failed major party candidates, including Sen. Mitt Romney, have lost their home state, their current state, or both. South Dakota Sen. George McGovern is a modern-day loner. During the historic upheaval of 1972, McGovern was responsible for only Washington, DC and Massachusetts.
However, for our purposes, we are only interested in local state defeats in presidential primaries. The Washington Post compiled a list of these failures since 1980, noting how devastating these losses were for the campaign.
Here’s a look at the future Haley might find herself in after chasing the president.
