Haley 2024 is done. What could the former SC governor’s political future hold?

Now that former Gov. Nikki Haley 2024 presidential bid has ended, she can now look to the future of her career, if she wants to.

At 52 years old, Haley is very much still in her political prime, considering President Joe Biden, 81, and former President Donald Trump, 77, will have a rematch breaking the record for oldest candidates to run for the White House the two of them set four years ago.

In the near term it appears Haley probably will take some time to catch her breath and recharge after running a more than one year-long campaign for the White House and retreat to private life.

She will face a decision of how much she wants to stay involved in politics and whether she wants to make another White House run in 2028. If she wants to stay in the public realm, she will have to decide how she does so and one way could be helping other candidates running for office this year.

Preparing for another run would require staying in the news or at least staying on donors and activists radar screens. Making another run may require going around the country and forming relationships with other politicians who could prove helpful in the future.

Haley last held public office in 2018, when she resigned as ambassador to the United Nations.

Trump has said Haley most likely would not be his pick for a vice presidential running mate.

Haley often repeated she wasn’t staying in the race to be Trump’s vice president and said her extended run was not meant to set up a 2028 campaign.

“If I was running for a bogus reason, I would have dropped out a long time ago. The rest of the fellas already did that. They have their own plans. I don’t judge them. But I’m still here,” Haley said in a Feb. 20 speech. “I’m fighting for what I know is right. And I don’t care what the party leaders and political elites want. I’ll keep fighting until the American people close the door.”

“I’m used to people questioning my intentions, so I’ll make a few things clear,” Haley said. “Some people used to say I was running because I really wanted to be Vice President. I think I’ve pretty well settled that question.”

Does she try to stay relevant for this year’s election or in 2026?

What is next for Haley depends on how involved she wants to get up and down the ballot in the fall election, said Rob Godfrey, a former aide to Haley when she was governor.

There is the opportunity for Republicans to expand their majority in the House and flip the Senate and she may find herself campaigning on behalf of GOP candidates across the country.

“She does it on behalf of those candidates and in doing so she not only helps them out, but she helps the (former) president out if he wins because his majority would be larger in the House,” Godfrey said. “His working allies would be larger in numbers in the Senate, and Nikki Haley would be seen as an ally who helped make that happen. It also happens to benefit her as well because she would have been seen as a team player.”

Whether Haley decides to actively court activists and donors during the next four years, will also inform what’s next for her.

“Regardless of any of that, she has an important voice that’s only grown in its power and significance in the primary process and she will be sought out as a speaker about the future of conservative policy in the country and she’s never shied away from the opportunity to talk about that and like anybody else, she has to make money, too,” Godfrey said. “I’m sure that will be a focus of hers as well.”

Warren Tompkins, a South Carolina political strategist who worked for Gov. Carroll Campbell, said the former ambassador to the United Nations can be a contributor on cable news or Sunday morning political talk shows.

The country has challenges with China, Russia, Iran and the Middle East. People who are well versed in the foreign policy arena will be in demand.

“She has credentials in foreign policy. That’s going to be a huge topic,” Tompkins said. “It is right now, it’s not going to go away in the next few years.”

Tompkins added if Haley wants to run for a lower office in the next couple of years, she may look at the 2026 Senate or governor’s race in South Carolina. The state’s constitution only limits someone from being governor for two successive terms.

“She’s got opportunities,” Haley said. “She just has to figure out what it’s going to be.”

Haley’s relevance may also hinge on how much money she has leftover in her campaign account from the presidential run.

“If she leaves money in a federal campaign account, that’s a basis for her to continue her operations,” said Dave Wilson, another South Carolina political strategist. “Keeping some level of an operation would allow her to keep relevance.”

Does she make another run in 2028?

Republicans have traditionally nominated someone as their presidential candidate who had run before and was in the race longer than other hopefuls. They can be as next in line.

Reagan was nominated in 1980 after a failed run in 1976. George H.W. Bush was nominated in 1988 after running in 1980. Bob Dole was nominated after failed runs in 1980 and 1988. In 2008, McCain was nominated after losing to George W. Bush in 2000. Mitt Romney got the nomination in 2012 after coming up short against McCain in 2008.

“If she can take that mantle, she can only do it in 2028,” said Scott Huffmon, the director of the Winthrop University Poll. “But the fact is … only Donald Trump could be Donald Trump. If he gets elected, whoever he sets up as his heir apparent, will not necessarily have the advantage of previous heir apparents because they aren’t Trump. Being blessed by Trump doesn’t automatically guarantee you a victory. We saw that in 2022.”

During her 2024 run, Haley often repeated that she performed better than Trump in head-to-head matchup polls against Biden. She pointed to how Republicans lost control of the House in 2018, lost the Senate and White House in 2020, and did not have a large red wave in 2022.

“If Trump loses, she is the frontrunner moving forward. If Biden loses, she is going to do a lot of making up to Donald Trump to have any chance of getting at least a nod from him moving forward,” Wilson said. “It’s also dependent on who his running mate is. If Trump wins and his running mate is someone like Tim Scott, Tim Scott would then be set for a massive run for the presidency come 2028.”

“If Biden wins, she has a ‘I told you so’ line she can easily run,” Wilson added.

If Haley does make another run, she would have to reach out to those who have connections to grassroots activists, said Nate Leupp, who leads the 4th District Republican club in the Upstate.

“A good presidential campaign needs to be making some key connections which could be a handful of people, but when the campaign season really starts to hit off, when they come to South Carolina for the year, year-and-a-half, two years preceding the actual election, they need to be reaching out to grassroots,” Leupp said.

How much will voters remember?

Haley’s decision to stay in the presidential race through Super Tuesday irked the party faithful who called on her to drop out to allow the party to unite around Trump’s candidacy.

Whether those in the GOP, who are most loyal to Trump supporters and dominate the party, will hold Haley’s extended run against her will be a question.

“I don’t care what she does. She just needs to know the backlash is going to come back. It’s going to follow her,” Tanya Ramp, 39, of Myrtle Beach said last month outside of Trump’s rally in Conway.

Scott, 66, and Cindy Simmons, 67, of Myrtle Beach, said they would like to see Haley as part of a Trump administration and stay the full four years, instead of leaving after two years.

“She had a good position and how do you walk away from that,” Scott Simmons said.

“I could see her running in 2028, depending on how the country is at that point, that’s when I would make my decision and who’s running against her obviously,” Cindy Simmons said.

Scott Simmons said he would like to see her as part of Trump’s administration.

And even though Trump said he probably wouldn’t pick Haley as vice president, the Simmons couple said they could see it working even though Trump and Haley would probably butt heads.

“(Haley) would be somebody to challenge him, in a good way,” Scott Simmons said.

But a year in politics can be an eternity and so much could happen to effect the trajectories of people’s careers.

“You cannot predict politics,” Gov. Henry McMaster, who succeeded Haley as governor in 2017, said on Feb. 24 after voting in the S.C. GOP primary. “You never know.”

McMaster points to Richard Nixon’s career. After serving two terms as vice president under Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon lost the 1960 presidential election. Nixon then made a comeback and won the White House in 1968 and won reelection in 1972.

“Then in just a couple of years, he was gone and everybody thought he was dead again. And then he was back on the book circuit and the lecture circuit and got invited to everything,” McMaster said. “You can’t ever tell.”

In the immediate future, Haley did not indicate what she might do this cycle except for returning to private life.

“I sought the honor of being your president; but in our great country, being a private citizen is privilege enough in itself. And that’s a privilege I very much look forward to enjoying,” Haley said.