The former president’s closest competitor for the GOP nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, had just dropped out of the race and thrown his support to Trump, whom polls showed with a widening lead in Tuesday’s New Hampshire presidential primary. Yet his last remaining rival, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, insisted a Trump victory was not a foregone conclusion.

“What do you want? Do you want more of the same, or do you want something new?” Haley pleaded, standing with New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu on Sunday under a sign reading STEAMERS and a fishing net studded with colorful buoys. “Do you want to go back to a country where they decide who’s a good person and who’s a bad person, who’s the right person and who’s the wrong person? Or do you want to come together as Americans?”

What the GOP’s most loyal voters want, it seems, is pure, uncut Trumpism—with all the baggage and ideological divergence from traditional conservatism that entails.

[Clearly, Molly isn’t enamored of this choice, but that’s precisely what the majority of Republicans appear to want. That’s why we have primaries, but as I wrote yesterday, this cycle has been less of a primary and more of a referendum on Trump’s incumbency. — Ed]