In the aftermath of Super Tuesday, Republican candidate Nikki Haley is expected to announce her withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race. Haley's campaign struggled to gain traction, securing a victory in only one state during the primaries. The results effectively cement the long-anticipated rematch between former President Donald Trump and incumbent President Joe Biden come November.
Yahoo Finance's Senior Columnist Rick Newman breaks down the details, discussing the market implications of a Trump or Biden presidency.
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.
Editor's note: This article was written by Angel Smith
Video Transcript
SEANA SMITH: Turning now to the latest from DC. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley expected to exit the Republican presidential race after winning just one state on Super Tuesday. Haley is set to make the official announcement at 10:00 AM Eastern time today. That's according to a report from the "Wall Street Journal."
Now this sets it up for another Biden-Trump-- or a Biden-Trump rematch. We had Anthony Scaramucci, SkyBridge Founder and Managing Partner, on Yahoo Finance earlier this week, weighing in on who is likely to prevail. Let's take a listen.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Mr. Trump is going to lose this election. Joe Biden will get re-elected. And that will be generally good for the markets.
SEANA SMITH: Not necessarily a huge surprise that Anthony Scaramucci thinks that. But let's bring in Rick Newman here to discuss the top takeaways from these results. Rick, I guess, first, Nikki Haley's announcement, not exactly a huge surprise going off of what you said yesterday. But what do investors need to know just in terms of this match-up and what that could mean?
RICK NEWMAN: Well, let's just finish up with Nikki Haley first. So, she's probably-- so the reporting is she's not necessarily going to endorse Donald Trump. I'm not sure that matters. The one thing that would matter with Nikki Haley is if she-- this is fun speculation-- is it possible she could join one of these third label parties or third parties-- No Labels is the one I'm thinking of-- and run as a third party or as an independent.
That's unlikely. But that would be quite interesting if it happened, because she might take more votes from Donald Trump than from Joe Biden, and be decisive in that way. I think Nikki Haley, probably instead of doing that, she probably wants to set herself up for 2028. I think we're going to hear again from her in 2028. We'll see if she does better then or not.
As for markets, you know, I mean, we're now-- the primary elections are basically over. They're not technically over, but they are, for all intents and purposes, over. And it's time to start comparing what would Trump's policies be with what would Biden's policies be. And there are a lot of policies, a lot of things could go one way or another that matter for investors here.
A huge set of tax cuts from 2017 are going to expire at the end of 2025. So the next president has to figure out what to do about that. Do we want more tariffs on imports under Donald Trump? The answer is no, we don't. But Trump says he wants 10% tariffs on all imports, another 10%, and possibly as much as 60% on all China imports. So do we want another trade war? I don't think so. But voters can decide. Do they want another trade war or not?
And then there are-- I mean, immigration is another one. There's a whole slew of issues. I think the big question is how much attention will actual issues even get, given that for now anyway, what most people care about is the slugfest between Trump and Biden, and which of these old geezers is going to fall over first.
BRAD SMITH: Sure. I mean we also know that Trump was hoping for an economic crash within the next 12 months, so that he didn't have to be--
RICK NEWMAN: Looks like he's not going to get it. I mean, stock market at all time highs. I mean--
BRAD SMITH: So, all these things considered, where are we going to hear more about where each candidate wants to spend into the economy to help bolster certain facets of how we operate on a daily basis here in the US?
RICK NEWMAN: I mean, it depends how these candidates campaign. So, and-- you kind of can't blame either one of them for attack politics. I mean, Trump's negative campaigning worked in 2016. I mean, think about what Trump did in 2016, his inauguration speech in 2017-- American carnage.
I mean, Trump's whole message is America is going down the drain, and I'm the only guy who can save it. I don't think that's remotely true, but there are people who want to believe that. I mean we talked about this earlier this week.
There was this "New York Times" poll recently that found 51% of Americans think the economy is in poor condition. That is the lowest possible answer you could-- worst answer you could have given. That's given stock market rallies, stock markets hitting new highs. I mean, inflation is coming down. We have labor shortages. Anybody who wants a job can get a job. And a majority of Americans say that's a poor economy.
So that seems to be fertile ground for Trump to just keep telling people everything sucks. And the guy who's the incumbent is the reason it sucks. And you need to elect me again. I don't know if it'll work, but I'm sure that's what he's going to try.
