Nikki Haley has been running to lead a Republican party that no longer exists | Moira Donegan

The war hawks and ultrarich don't need the democracy Trump imperils. If offered running mate, Haley will make her peace too

Can we stop pretending now? After weeks of speculating by the media that perhaps Nikki Haley might eke out a win in New Hampshire - or at least lose by a percentage small enough to make continuing in the race reasonable - she lost by a wide margin.

Before we had been offered various rationales for why, just maybe, this wouldn't happen. Haley, after all, had recently come into a flush of donor money at the end of 2023, as the field dwindled and she was left alone as the last almost-plausible non-Trump candidate. She'd put much of that money into New Hampshire, a state whose Republicans tend to hew more moderate. (Haley, a rabid conservative but one who does not seem to oppose the rule of law outright, is what passes for moderate" in today's Republican party.)