Beware the Haley-RINO Trump Trap in New Hampshire and South Carolina

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The Never-Trump RINO establishment has only two shots to take down The Donald.  Nikki Haley is their trigger girl in what they hope will be its fatal double tap on Trump. 

Backed by a flood of RINO dark money – and a party-switching gambit by Democrat strategists -- Haley hopes to pull her Trump trigger first in the New Hampshire presidential primary on January 23, and then, on February 24, in South Carolina.  These are the first two Republican primaries – Iowa on January 15 is simply a caucus.

The frontloading of New Hampshire as the first Republican primary is particularly unfortunate for Americans who like their elections free of gamesmanship as this putatively “Republican” primary is NOT exclusively for registered Republicans.  The Granite State also allows “undeclared voters” to vote; and  the gaming math is scary here if you are a Trump supporter. 

A mere 30% of registered voters in New Hampshire are Republicans while a whopping 40% are unaffiliated.  As you read this, the Haley-RINO Trump Trappers are putting a full court press on these independent voters hoping they will stuff the ballot box in Haley’s favor.

At the same time, Democrat strategists fearful of a Trump juggernaut have also already pushed hard on Democrat voters to change their registration just for the primary election.  These crossover Dems are now eligible to likewise stuff the ballot box with their Never-Trump votes in favor of the RINO Haley; and the Trump Trap math for this Democrat gambit is equally scary. 

Consider here that crossover Democrats voting in the Republican primary may range as high as 10,000 or more in a primary election that may yield less than 200,000 overall votes.  This may be enough to bump up Haley’s numbers by as much as 3% to 5%.

This observation leads to the other Trump Trap math problem.  New Hampshire is NOT a “winner take all the delegates” state like California, Florida, and Ohio.  Instead, New Hampshire’s 22 pledged delegates are allocated proportionally by the number of votes each candidate receives.

Thus, if the Haley stalking horse gets a bump from Democrat crossover voters and an even bigger bump from Independents voting in the Republican primary, she’ll be able to grab a much bigger share of the 22 delegates up for grabs in New Hampshire.

The strategy of the Haley campaign and RINO Trump Trappers should now be obvious.  In the short run, Haley seeks to leverage Independent and Democrat voters in New Hampshire to pump up her numbers in an effort to show that Trump has feet of clay.  Longer term, Haley wants to grab as many of the 22 delegates as she can either to block Trump’s nomination at the convention or to use these delegates as bargaining chips to get Haley on the ticket with Trump.

Of course, the other piece of the New Hampshire Trump Trap involves a very dark RINO night in former New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu.  Sununu is that worst of RINOs, a neocon globalist from the Bush-Cheney tree who not only loves to offshore American jobs in the name of corporate efficiency but also is happy to send our men and women off to fight the kind of endless wars that Bush and Cheney got us into – Sununu’s daddy John was George H.W. Bush’s White House Chief of Staff.

Since early in the election season, Sununu has played the role of a surrogate favorite son and Trump basher while positioning himself to endorse the candidate in the strongest position to challenge Trump.  While Sununu flirted with both Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott, he finally took his endorsement vows with Haley on December 12; and Sununu has already appeared in TV ads and rallies.

Sununu is not only carrying the water for the Trump-hating Bush-Cheney wing of the party.  He knows his quickest path to the national spotlight will be a Cabinet-level position which Trump would never give this Bushie and Haley surely will.

If Haley can come out of New Hampshire with momentum, she can then drag Trump into the other part of the Trump Trap – her home state of South Carolina.  As a former governor of South Carolina, Haley is running as a favorite daughter and will pick up substantially more votes than she otherwise would in any other state.  This home field advantage will greatly inflate her perceived strength and bolster the twin illusions of a Trump weakness and Haley momentum.

In light of this RINO-Haley Trump trap, there should be no pearl clutching among the MAGA faithful if my old Boss fails to crush the field in New Hampshire and South Carolina.  He may well not for all the reasons mentioned.

Instead, we simply must not get sucked into all of the Haley Hype and Never Trump media spin that will surely be heaped upon us if Haley and her RINO backers are able to successfully spring their Trump Trap in New Hampshire and South Carolina.    

The reason we must hold fast is that Nikki and the rest of the Keebler Elves running in the Republican primary have their own harsh math problem.  Trump’s MAGA base is as big and solid the Rock of Gibraltar, he polls nationally as the presumptive nominee, and he will all but lock up the nomination just days after South Carolina on March 5 when the Super Tuesday primaries are held. 

You can count on this Super Tuesday Trump Triumph just as surely as you can count out the RINOs now trying to take down my old Boss.   You can likewise count out the possibility that Trump will ever tap Nikki Haley as his VEEP.  From my days in the White House, I knew this “lean and hungry Cassius” – if you get my Shakespeare drift -- as one of the most untrustworthy globalists in the Trump cabinet.  Donald Trump knows it, too.