OP-ED: Consider a Nikki Haley write-in scenario

October 4, 2024  |  By Joseph Bosco 

Vermont and the District of Columbia each supported Nikki Haley over Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican primaries and each could still rescue America from its present depressing choice in the election with a successful Haley write-in campaign.

If she won a plurality in either or both of the two jurisdictions, Haley would be awarded D.C.'s three electoral votes – the Constitutional minimum – simply by filing a certificate within seven days after the election, and she would receive Vermont's three votes without needing to file or take any action.

If the contest between the former president and Vice President Kamala Harris is as close on Election Day as the polls indicate, D.C.’s and Vermont’s combined six votes – or even just three – could prevent either major candidate from reaching the required 270. 

Under Article II of the Constitution, the newly elected House of Representatives would choose the president from the top three electoral vote-getters, which would then include Haley. The newly elected Senate would choose the vice president from the top two recipients of electoral votes – J.D. Vance or Tim Walz if they remain on their respective tickets.

Haley, a former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations, represents mainstream Republicans who may have welcomed Trump’s prior handling of the economy or his tough stance against China, but are not enamored of his style, his values, and especially, his disregard of Constitutional norms. As Haley often said in her campaign speeches, "We have a country to save" back when the election looked like another Biden v. Trump showdown.  

A major argument against a Biden second term was that his age and infirmity would preclude his serving and the nation would be left with the untested Harris. Now, thanks to Democratic manipulation of their nomination process, we may have her anyway despite several better-known and better-qualified Democrats who were denied the opportunity to compete.

Disaffected Republicans could be joined by independents and by Democrats who objected, after President Biden withdrew under pressure, to the way Harris was anointed as his successor-nominee without their input. Her 2020 campaign was a failure and she was the first one to exit the race. The party elite decided that this time she would face no Democratic competition in the goal of defeating Trump.  

Her avoidance of serious one-on-one interviews, and any press conference with free-wheeling journalists as Trump has faced, has raised fresh doubts about her sustained viability as a candidate and her competence as the prospective commander-in-chief. 

Though Trump performed worse in their debate, she was allowed to skate over her remarkable reversals of previously-stated positions. Co-moderator Linsey Davis asked her: “In your last run for president you said you wanted to ban fracking. Now you don't. You wanted mandatory government buyback programs for assault weapons. Now your campaign says you don't. You supported decriminalizing border crossings. Now you're taking a harder line. I know you say that your values have not changed. So then why have so many of your policy positions changed?”

Harris repeated her now-familiar line, “So my values have not changed” and proceeded with a lengthy explanation of her shifting positions on fracking.  Yet, if a candidate’s values inform his or her policies, and if policies reflect his or her values, Harris is being fundamentally dishonest with the voters in one of two ways. Either her values have changed and she no longer believes, for example, that global warming is an existential threat to humanity caused or aggravated by fossil fuels.  Or, her present positions are mere campaign posturing designed to mollify – that is to deceive – moderate voters for purposes of winning the election and, once in office, would return to her intensely progressive values.

Her greatest advantage seems to be that she is not Biden or Trump, the two oldest presidential candidates in U.S. history. As she brusquely reminded Trump,  “You're running against me, not Joe Biden.”   

A Haley write-in scenario will be opposed by both Trump and Harris with the argument that she would draw votes from one or both of them and therefore serve as a spoiler.  But the 2024 election was already spoiled by both major parties when they rigged their respective nominating processes to preclude fair and honest competition and ensure the retention of their aged and cognitively challenged legacy leaders. It was nomination by domination.

The June debate awakened Democrats to Biden’s deficiencies. The Harris-Trump debate and his performance since then have confirmed Trump’s own unfitness for the presidential office. The two attempts to assassinate Trump reflect the turbulent and potentially violent state of American society and politics today. A saner, calmer Haley voice would have a healing effect on a troubled and divided nation – and an election decided by a freshly elected House of Representatives would foil the efforts of foreign adversaries to directly influence and manipulate U.S. voters.

Originally from Boston, Joseph Bosco lives in Washington, D.C., and has served in senior policy positions for both Republican and Democratic administrations in Massachusetts and D.C.