The Spire

Tucker Scott ’26

Staff Writer

Presidential hopeful Tim Scott recently dropped out of the race for the nomination. Which comes as a shock to millions of Americans who were unaware Tim Scott was running in the first place. Now to the question, does it matter? And the answer surprisingly is yes, but only if there is a consolidation of the field.

Nationally, don’t expect things to change. However, the state polling is where you are going to see some serious change, in Iowa and South Carolina especially. In Iowa Scott had about 7% which is not insignificant. The question is, where does the support go? A lot of people are betting DeSantis is going to get a boost, at least in Iowa. But I just don’t see it. Instead I imagine most of his support, and donor cash, is going to go to Nikki Haley. 

First of all, he was very like minded with her on various issues. But also because he’s from South Carolina, he’s seen as the nice guy in the campaign. Which is much more like Nikki Haley, than Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump. 

In fact I would not be surprised that if Haley were to somehow win the nomination Tim Scott would come back as the vice presidential candidate. Which would be disastrous for Democrats. The most diverse ticket, and it would be for Republicans which immediately takes the race card off the table. Also a woman at the head so that takes the gender card off the table. Haley’s parents are also from India which makes the anti immigrant point almost impossible. Finally, and most importantly, Haley is not as toxic or off-putting as Trump or DeSantis in the polling, both in general, and especially against Biden. People aren’t afraid of her, or have a gut wrenching fear of her that they’ll vote against her no matter what. 

In Arizona, Haley is up 7 points on Biden, while Trump is up 5 points. In Michigan, Haley has a 10-point edge, compared to 5 for Trump. In Pennsylvania, Haley takes it by 10 points and Trump by 4 points. In Wisconsin, Haley has a 13-point lead, and Trump trails Biden by 2 points. She is leading, and leading big in all the states Republicans need to win if they want to have a shot at the presidency. 

Now to be fair, the poll found Trump maintains a larger lead in Georgia and Nevada. And in Georgia, Trump leads Biden by 6 points, and Haley leads Biden by 3 points. In Nevada, Trump is up 11 points, and Haley is up 6 points. However the likelihood that these polls remain where they are for Trump is almost zero. Especially considering Trump lost both those states in 2020 and lost Nevada in 2016. 

They also would run very different campaigns. For Trump, and even DeSantis, the entire campaign would be focused on everything Joe Biden is doing wrong. Which is totally fair and one way you win an election, but it isn’t the only way. Because what happens once Biden is out of office? You scramble. Successful campaigns and movements can’t be run and based off of this one person is bad. Because once that happens everything collapses. Republicans (should have) learned this in 2018 when they rallied against Hillary and Obama in 2016 and then when 2018 came they got clobbered. For the Democrats, it was the same deal in 2022. They scrambled for a message, the only difference was that Trump was still around so they could still sort of run against him.

Haley actually has a vision and can run on both a positive and negative campaign. She actually has a realistic way to get Republican policy passed, slowly and surely. Because no matter how much DeSantis wants a 6 week abortion ban nationally, it just isn’t happening, even with Republican majorities in both chambers. To be clear, that doesn’t mean that Trump can’t win the election. However going with Haley would be a much safer choice and would not hurt the Republicans down ballot. So if Republicans want to actually win this election solidly, and set up their standing for the future of the country beyond Joe Biden, they would be smart to coalesce their support behind Nikki Haley.

Copy Edited by Sabine Hinkaty ’26