It has been made abundantly clear in polling and the first two elections of the Republican primary cycle that former President Donald Trump will be the party's nominee for the general election in November in a rematch of the 2020 contest against President Joe Biden.
Despite that undeniable reality, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley has steadfastly refused to end her candidacy and drop out of the race and instead has insisted that she will continue through at least Super Tuesday in March, Breitbart reported.
In fact, in response to the mounting calls for her to step aside and support Trump's presumptive status as the GOP nominee, Haley defiantly asserted, "I’m not going anywhere."
On Wednesday, the former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina governor appeared on CNN's "The Lead" with host Jake Tapper, who asked Haley, "Did you think it was inappropriate when the RNC chair, Ronna McDaniel, suggested that you need to drop out because she didn't see a path for you?"
"I absolutely think it was inappropriate," Haley replied. "We have had two states that have voted. You need 1,215 delegates. Donald Trump has 32. I have 17. We still have 48 states and more territories to go before we get there."
"I'm not going anywhere, Jake," she continued. "I'm going to continue to go all the way through South Carolina. Then we're going to go on to Super Tuesday, and we're going to keep on going forward."
"This is about the fact that we can't live in chaos anymore. This is about the fact that we have got to focus on what it's going to take to not just get our domestic policy on track, but what are we going to do to prevent wars and to make sure we keep Americans safe?" Haley said.
"We can't do that with the two guys there. Americans are telling people that," she added about polls that show broad dissatisfaction among the electorate with the likely choices of Trump and Biden. "We need to start listening and make sure that we focus on what it takes to win a primary, so that we can get our country back on track."
In the interview with Haley, CNN's Tapper pressed, "So you're committed to staying through -- staying in the race through Super Tuesday, no matter what happens in South Carolina?"
Haley replied in the affirmative and insisted that she would be able to "close the gap" in her home state of South Carolina and then "build on momentum" for the elections that followed.
"And then we will go into Michigan and we will go into Super Tuesday. We have a country to save," she said. "I'm not going anywhere, because I don't want my kids to live like this. I don't want anybody else's kids to live like this. We have been in total distraction for a long time."
"And we know that, when America's distracted, the world is less safe. And all you have to do is look around the world and see that," Haley added. "I'm going to stay in this for the long haul, because I think it's important and I know that we need to get this done."
To be sure, there are no rules or mechanisms in place to force Haley to drop out of the Republican primary race despite the exceedingly long odds she faces in her quest to surpass Trump for the party's nomination, particularly given the primary polls that show the former president with an average 54-point lead over the former ambassador and governor, 72.7% to 18.7%.
In the end, Haley will eventually feel compelled to exit the race, albeit not before doing some of the dirty work for Democrats by damaging and distracting Trump with a persistent but unwinnable campaign that prevents him from fully transitioning his team in preparation for the general election.
