CHRIS CRUCIAL: Here's what to think of the Nikki Haley dead-enders 🤔

PLUS: Paul Ryan's write-in!

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1. On the Nikki Haley dead-enders

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley dropped out of the 2024 Republican presidential primary on March 6.

Two months and one day later — aka yesterday — Haley took more than 1 in every 5 votes cast in the Republican presidential primary in Indiana.

Which, well:

As Adam Wren, an Indiana expert, wrote in POLITICO today:

Indiana delivered the former president double-point margins in 2016 and 2020. But on Tuesday night, even though Trump won all of the state’s 58 delegates, Nikki Haley posted above-30-point performances in places like Marion County, home to Indianapolis, and affluent Hamilton County, its suburb to the north.

This is where Biden grew Democratic margins in 2020, and where Indiana Democrats have been targeting for years. And it’s the same kind of place where Trump has been weak throughout the 2024 GOP primary in other states. While virtually no one doubts Indiana will be in the Trump column come November, Tuesday’s results show a durable coalition for Haley.

On that “durable coalition” point, Wren is exactly right.

I did some digging here. So, Haley drops out March 6. Between then and now, I count six swing (or potentially swing) states that have held Republican presidential primaries. Trump won each one. But in every state Haley, who was on the ballot but not actively running a campaign, got some decent chunk of the vote.

Let’s go through them.

Georgia (March 12): Haley 13.2% (78K votes)

Arizona (March 19): Haley 17.8% (111K votes)

Florida (March 19): Haley 13.9% (155K votes)

Ohio (March 19): Haley 14.4% (161K votes)

Wisconsin (April 2): Haley 12.8% (77K votes)

Pennsylvania (April 23): Haley 16.6% (158K votes)

Ok, before we go any further, let me make a few caveats.

a) Several of these states (Georgia, Arizona) hold open primaries, which means anyone can vote. Which then means that it’s possible Democrats crossed over to vote for Haley as a protest against Trump. But they are 100% Democrats and were always going to vote for Joe Biden no matter who Republicans nominated.

b) There are a chunk of Republicans who voted for Haley as a way to voice their protest with Trump but who are, after all, Republicans and, having vented their spleen, will now vote for Trump in the fall.

c) Some number of these voters are waiting to see what Haley does. She very publicly did not endorse Trump when she dropped out and said he needed to do the hard work of courting her and her voters. By all reports, Trump has done none of that — ignoring Haley and her voters. Still, she wants to have a future in the GOP. And that probably means she will, at some point, offer an endorsement of him — a move that will likely sway some of those folks on the fence to get behind him.

But with ALL that said, it’s very important to remember that the likely margins in, say, Arizona or Wisconsin for Trump or Biden are going to be VERY small. Like, TINY.

Which means this dead-ender Haley vote could matter. Bigly. Let me explain.