Why Nikki Haley says she won’t drop out after losing New Hampshire

New Hampshire has voted. Donald Trump has won, again.

Tuesday’s contest — the second of the 2024 Republican nominating contest, is over. Donald Trump was the clear winner, and remains firmly atop both polls of GOP voters nationally as well as the delegate count necessary for securing his party’s nomination.

And after throwing it all against the wall in the Granite State, Nikki Haley has lost her first head-to-head matchup versus Mr Trump. Despite endorsements from the state’s governor, largest newspaper and even the conservative opinion board at the Wall Street Journal, Ms Haley could not pull out ahead of the former president, who in many of his supporters’ minds should still be considered an incumbent.

So where do we go from here? Why isn’t Nikki Haley dropping out, as did Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy after their respective failures to “shock the media”, in Mr Ramaswamy’s words, in Iowa?

There are a few reasons:

1. Money, money, money

Running a campaign for the presidency is expensive. Very expensive.

And Nikki Haley, unlike her fallen rivals, has the money to keep going. Her fundraising is surging heading into the new year after she took in $24 million last quarter; her cash on hand was around $14.5 million earlier this month.

Though it has been sparsely mentioned when describing the realities for her rivals, Mr DeSantis and Mr Ramaswamy, after Iowa, money (or the lack thereof) was likely one of the biggest factors that pushed them out of the race. Mr DeSantis entered the new year with only a few million in cash on hand; even a November jolt of $2 million from new wealthy backers couldn’t propel him far past Iowa, especially given the fact that he had come so far behind Mr Trump in a state where he and his allies