DeSan­tis and Haley take two dif­fer­ent paths after los­ing to Trump

For­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSan­tis (R‑FL) have seem­ing­ly buried the hatch­et after a con­tentious pri­ma­ry fight, while for­mer U.N. Ambas­sador Nik­ki Haley has left her vot­ers to be court­ed by Pres­i­dent Joe Biden.
It isn’t the first time the two van­quished Trump rivals have diverged in their strate­gies for deal­ing with the for­mer pres­i­dent and pre­sump­tive Repub­li­can nom­i­nee since wrap­ping up their own White House bids. DeSan­tis imme­di­ate­ly, if unen­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly, endorsed Trump when he dropped out. Haley hasn’t done so yet, and Democ­rats hope to win over her sup­port­ers.
If DeSan­tis helps boost Trump’s fundrais­ing for the fall cam­paign, it could have major 2028 impli­ca­tions, espe­cial­ly if Haley remains on the side­lines through Novem­ber.
Trump, by win­ning, would dis­qual­i­fy him­self from seek­ing anoth­er term in 2028 under the 22nd Amend­ment of the Con­sti­tu­tion. Defeat would leave Trump with an uncer­tain future, polit­i­cal­ly and oth­er­wise. Either way, it would set up a fight for the GOP beyond Trump.
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DeSan­tis ran this year as a suc­ces­sor to Trump, one who could pur­sue Trump­ism with more rig­or and dis­ci­pline than the ex-pres­i­dent him­self. Haley, per­haps out of neces­si­ty, even­tu­al­ly set­tled on run­ning as the can­di­date for Repub­li­cans who want­ed to see the par­ty revert to the way things were before Trump’s June 2015 esca­la­tor ride down the esca­la­tor.
Both in their own ways also posi­tioned them­selves as more ortho­dox move­ment con­ser­v­a­tives than Trump, hit­ting the for­mer pres­i­dent on exces­sive fed­er­al spend­ing. Haley in par­tic­u­lar sought to con­trast her­self wi …