Republican candidate Nikki Haley had created great expectations by announcing a big speech for this Tuesday at noon.
Many speculated about the possibility that she would announce her withdrawal from the race for the presidential nomination, but it was a coup intended to send just the opposite message.
She remains in the race, which has its next stage in the South Carolina primary this Saturday.
And she anticipates that she will not retire even if she is defeated, even though that provokes the wrath of her rival, Donald Trump.
“On Sunday I will continue to be a candidate for the presidency.
"I'm not going anywhere."
Haley has hinted that she remains in the race at least until Super Tuesday, March 5, the day when the largest number of states vote.
“Some of you, maybe some of the media, have come here today to see if I drop out of the race.
Well, I'm not abandoning her,” she clarified as soon as she began her speech.
“I'm going to campaign every day until the last person votes.”
South Carolina Republican primary polls give Trump a victory of more than 30 points: 64% to 32%, according to the latest calculation by poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight.
The candidate's prospects are not better in the following states that vote.
Haley, however, isn't throwing in the towel.
Trump's situation is peculiar.
The Supreme Court has to decide whether he can run in the primaries in several states, although he is apparently inclined to allow it.
The former president has an appointment to sit in the dock in New York on March 25 and other scheduled trials.
Today, only an unforeseen accident would pave the way for Haley to the nomination at the Republican convention in mid-July.
Still, she prefers to keep fighting.
“I fight for what I know is right.
And I don't care what party leaders and political elites want.
I will keep fighting until the American people close the door.
That day is not today and it will not be Saturday.
Not at all.
The presidential primaries have barely begun.
Only three states have voted.
That's all.
After this weekend, we will be at four.
It's not much.
Ten days after South Carolina, 21 other states and territories will vote.
People have the right to have their voices heard.
And they deserve a real choice.
Not Soviet-style elections where there is only one candidate and she gets 99% of the votes,” indicated the candidate in Greenville (South Carolina), where she gave a speech this Tuesday.
“Instead of focusing on how to make America stronger tomorrow, some want to know if I will concede today.
We have all heard the calls for him to quit.
We all know where they come from: the political elite, the party leaders, the entertainers of the world of commentators (...).
“They point to the primary polls and say that I am only delaying the inevitable,” he continued before defending his independence from the former president, compared to the coreligionists who give in to Trump's pressures.
“Many of the same politicians who now publicly embrace Trump are privately terrified of him.
They know what a disaster it has been and will continue to be for our party.
"They're just too afraid to say it out loud," the candidate said.
“I'm not afraid to say the hard truths out loud.
I don't feel any need to kiss the ring.
And I don't fear retaliation from Trump.
I'm not looking for anything from him.
My own political future worries me zero,” she added.
personal confrontation
Haley's campaign has increasingly taken a hard line against Donald Trump, sometimes in response to personal attacks from the former president.
Haley's main thesis is that the former president will be unable to defeat the current president, Joe Biden, in November.
The New Hampshire results showed low support for Trump among moderate and independent voters.
The former US ambassador to the UN believes that this support will worsen as the court cases against Trump continue and that the former president, with whom the Republicans have been defeated on numerous occasions, will be “a disaster” for her party.
“I am running for president because we have a country to save,” she said this Tuesday.
Previously, in a statement to the Associated Press, when asked why he did not withdraw and in which states he saw himself as stronger, he replied: “Instead of asking me which states I am going to win, why don't we ask how he is going to win?” Trump a presidential election after spending an entire year in court?”
Haley placed third in the Iowa
caucuses
, behind not only Trump but also Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who dropped out of the nomination race before the New Hampshire primary.
These votes became, therefore, a face-to-face between Haley and Trump, in which the former president emerged the winner with a large advantage, but not enough to force the withdrawal of the former governor of South Carolina.
“This race is far from over,” she said then, to the annoyance of Trump, who was unable to hide her annoyance.
Perhaps more humiliating for Haley was the Nevada result.
There were primaries in which Trump did not appear, but they did not award delegates either.
And also some
caucuses
, in which she did not participate, and in which Trump took all the delegates.
For Haley, however, the most hurtful thing was that in the primaries the majority of voters opted for the “none of these candidates” box, which obtained 61% of the votes.
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