If Nikki Hailey drops out and a couple months later Trump has to quit due to illness or something else, what happens?

I can’t say what happens if the leading candidate quits before the convention. If the nominated candidate quits after the convention, then the governing board of the party chooses a new candidate.

That’s to the best of my memory.

I’m sorry I can’t help before the nominating convention. I don’t know about that.

@seawulf575 steps in you won’t find a more devoted rep/con and those are the facts.

The world rejoices that it has dodged a major threat.

Nikki is saying today that she will NOT suspend her campaign even if she loses in NH. Maybe she knows something we don’t!!! I don’t remember this happening in my lifetime, so I don’t know the “real” answer. Just guessing, I’d think that the RNC would just choose the person that they felt could beat the Dems & then create a reason why it was legal to do whatever they decide. We have seen over & over that they are willing to make up rules as they go along that fits their needs!!!

It was just announced that 45 has won in NH…but…ONLY by about 5k votes. I wonder how many recounts we’ll have over this one???

I personally demand a recount!

Democrats will lose the Presidential race? Biden only wins if trump’s his opponent.

One of my biggest fears at this point is that Trump will pick DeSantis as VP and then Trump will either go to jail and be disqualified as president or die of poor health, which obviously he is not in the best of shape mentally or physically. And then we will end up with DeSantis as president.

Why are you only worried about Trump getting sick, what about Biden, same question really.

I thought DeSantis can’t be Trump’s VP, unless he changes residency to another state. I read conflicting info.

He could be Nikki’s VP.

@JLeslie I must be missing something. Why wouldn’t he be able to be Trump’s VP? I didn’t think there was any kind of residency requirement other than being a citizen of the United States. I hope you’re right though because that would take a load off.

I thought the VP and President can’t be from the same state. It was mentioned when people were talking about Kamala and Gavin on one ticket. I could be wrong. I did a quick google and there was conflicting information. I’m too tired to read more now, but I can look tomorrow.

@JLeslie I never really thought about it but I guess that would make sense. Let me know what you find out if you find something definitive, and if I have time I’ll look too.

@JLeslie I’m not concerned about Biden because he has a VP that will step in according to the constitution.
So it’s not the same question at all.

I agree, @chyna, it is a question of specific political protocol about challengers, not generic old men as @JLeslie would claim.

@chyna I found this article. I think it answers your Q. It explains what happens according to when the candidate becomes unable to hold office (including death) during the primary season. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-happens-if-a-presidential-candidate-cannot-take-office-due-to-death-or-incapacitation-before-january-2025/

As an aside, this talks a little more about Harris not being the automatic candidate if Biden dies during primary season. https://abcnews.go.com/538/biden-trump-suddenly-leaves-2024-race/story?id=106136493

@JLeslie Thank you! That’s very helpful and exactly what I was looking for.

You’re welcome.

@JLeslie a very interesting read, and thank you! I really never thought about all the different scenarios the article talks about.

@JLeslie already found the citation I was going to use (the Brookings one). It really depends on the time of when a candidate become unable to run/serve. The last time would be between when a candidate is chosen as the party candidate for POTUS and Election Day. During that time, if Trump was the nominee and he keeled over, the RNC would meet to name their new candidate for POTUS and VPOTUS. They are not bound by anything other than party rules.

Here’s a relevant statement from Heather Coxe Richardson today:

“For her part, Haley has vowed to stay in the contest. While observers point out that there is very little chance she could actually overtake Trump, it’s also true that either Trump’s obvious mental lapses or his legal troubles could knock him out of the race, in which case she would be the most viable candidate standing.”

He stated after winning New Hampshire that he doesn’t get angry, he gets even. Yet he went into a tirade against Nicki for not dropping out. Screaming, sweating, swearing with his veins bulging.
A little over board don’t you think?

I saw a headline that he threatened to investigate her if she stays in the race. What a load of shit he is for even thinking such a thing.

I’m glad she’s staying in, I’m glad for a third choice. Not saying I’ll necessarily vote for her, but I can’t imagine Biden doing another four years and 11 months and I think Trump is a total POS and too old, too, so I like that my hands aren’t tied again with voting for a “anything but Trump.”

Sometimes you just need to stay in the race to win. We say that in car racing. Anyone can crash or have a slow down at any time and then everything changes.

So much of the media is disgusting saying she can’t win. They influence voters. TWO STATES have voted. If our system is a done deal after two states that is for shit.

I saw Trump say the Democrats will start investigating her and charging her, I didn’t see that he was threatening to do it. Just wow. He’s awful.

I just don’t get why people don’t see how awful Trump is, whether you agree or disagree with his policies. It’s not like he’s hiding anything.

@janbb I hear nothing but excuses from the Trump lovers – i.e. “he’s real,” “he has no filter.” Calling women “horse face” and “fat” is equivalent to “having no filter?”

Talk about bad sportsmanship.

@JLeslie Also I keep hearing the clip of him from the press conference from New Hampshire where he was saying she had a “baaaad night.” Actually I think she had a good night. She didn’‘t lose by a whole lot and she won with independent voters, which would be encouraging to me, if I were her.

@jca2 NH has a large contingent of “independent” voters. These Indy voters can vote in either primary. Many of those that voted for Haley were Democrats who specifically registered as Indy for the purpose of voting against Trump. So for her to get a huge number of independent voters shows how badly she lost. She lost by 11 points even with Dems voting for her.

And the Dems that registered as Indies don’t have to worry about supporting Biden…he didn’t get onto the ballot. So they just don’t vote for a Dem.

Independent voters are a very important contingent in the US. I wouldn’t discount them or say they aren’t real voters.

I find it interesting that after 4+ years of defending Biden’s cognitive decline, Dems are suddenly worried about cognitive decline in Trump. Here’s how you know that is a farce: Biden isn’t making decisions. He is a figure head at the very best. If Trump were really slipping into dotage, the Deep State could put handlers in to run the government…just like they are for Biden. It would be a way of beating Trump without even challenging him.

@JLeslie In most places Indy voters are okay. I’m an Indy voter. But in many states (NH is one of the exceptions) Indy voters are not allowed to vote in Republican or Democrat primaries. The primaries are for the parties to decide who their candidate will be so someone that is not either a Republican or a Democrat (depending on the primary) is allowed to vote. So of course Democrats are taking full advantage of NH. But it still failed. They wanted Haley to win NH so the press could go wild and her backers could feel good about spending millions of dollars to try to put a puppet into the head office. SC is the next state to have a primary. Haley was governor of SC. But SC isn’t real enraptured with her. So if she loses her home state massively, that will be a big sign. SC is an open primary state too, but it is mainly a red state. The Dems would have to all register as Indys to make a difference.

@seawulf575 So they just change parties before the primary in closed primary states if they want to vote.

@JLeslie Yeah, but let’s be completely honest: most people are pretty lazy. changing your party affiliation takes effort.

@JLeslie I haven’t read everybody else’s comments so maybe somebody else said the same thing I’m going to. I think that he probably threw in that comment about the Democrats would start investigating her because that way if for some reason an investigation was started, no doubt instigated by him, then he could turn around and blame it on the Democrats. That’s the way he operates.

@seawulf575 you can now register to vote online, so I would think changing your party affiliation would be easy too.

@LifeQuestioner Maybe that’s why. My first reaction was he was trying to scare her off.

@LifeQuestioner Changing your party affiliation IS easy. But you still have to make the effort. That falls really short on many people.

@seawulf575 Both Trump and Biden would have to serve until five years from now. I don’t want to see either one of them being head of the US government in five years. Both of them should be “spending more time with their family .”

@jca2 Yet the left has defended Biden for his entire term. Denied, downplayed…whatever it took…to avoid saying he is getting dementia. He was bad off when he was campaigning and you had no problem voting for him then. Apparently you don’t have as much reluctance as you purport.

Things have changed in four years, @seawulf575. I don’t know about you, but my life was vastly different four years ago than it is now.

Things have changed in 4 years. But Biden was already showing signs of dementia when he was Candidate Biden. So are you saying that 4 years ago dementia was okay but today it isn’t? So if the vote comes down to Biden or Trump, who are you voting for?

@seawulf575 I don’t know. I am not happy with those two choices.