Conservative media voices laughed at her, warned her to drop out, and mocked her with racist taunts, but despite this indignance, a string of decisive defeats, and consistently lower polling support, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley vowed to remain in the Republican presidential primary until after Super Tuesday on March 5.

With several months to hone their attacks on the last remaining Republican challenger to former President Donald Trump, who could secure the necessary delegates as soon as March 12, anti-Haley voices seem to be calcifying around one narrative to explain her ongoing campaign: sabotage.

Haley is “acting like a saboteur,” the arguments go, since her all-but-impossible campaign means that “Republican money that would otherwise be used” for the general election is instead tied up in primaries for as long as possible. Although Trump ally Steve Bannon previously hypothesized that Haley will hang on until the convention to scheme her way onto the ticket as vice president and “run the administration from number two,” many of these attacks instead suggest that her “open sabotage” by remaining in the race is in preparation for a secret third party effort to undermine Trump.

Haley has said “over and over” that she is not interested in a third party campaign, but it hasn’t stopped some right-wing media voices from accusing her of running a “No Labels” candidacy, referring to a centrist nonprofit seeking -- and so far unable to find — a bipartisan unity ticket. No Labels has specifically said it would be interested in Haley for the effort.

“You would think a normal person would drop out” after so many primary defeats, said Daily Wire host Candace Owens. “But a normal person’s not Nikki Haley. A normal person is not a vessel that goes to the highest bidder.”

“She’s just going to keep plugging along because she’s got money and she’s obviously funded to do that,” Owens continued.

Citing former GOP primary contender Vivek Ramaswamy, Owens suggested that “there was a plan from the deep state, a well-funded plan” to replace Trump with Haley as the Republican nominee, reducing the election to her against President Joe Biden as “two puppets that the deep state can and do control.”

“You have to ask the question — well, why she is staying in the race,” Fox host Sean Hannity groused on his radio show. “There are profound implications with her staying in.”

Responding to a caller who said that “Democrats are using her as a tool to try to weaken the Republican Party,” Hannity added that her continued candidacy “means that Republican money that would otherwise be saved and used for a general election campaign now has to further be spent on future primaries.”

“It wouldn’t shock me if Democrats are purposely trying to keep this — keep her in this race as long as possible so the Trump campaign has to spend a lot more money than they otherwise would have,” he concluded.

Days before Haley’s home state primary on February 24, OutKick host Clay Travis predicted that “she’s going to lose Saturday in South Carolina, and she’s going to lose by double digits,” and that she would continue campaigning — all of which transpired.

“The only thing that makes sense to me is that Nikki Haley is thinking about running as a third party candidate to try and deliver the election to Joe Biden,” Travis said, noting that “Democrats are funding her campaign now” and “there is no pathway for her to the nomination.”

One day before the South Carolina primary, longtime Trump adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News that “we’ve never seen this kind of open sabotage of the Republican nominating contest before in modern history.” Accusing Haley of “openly appealing to Democrat voters, to Biden’s voters” for support, Miller raged against “dark money donors” and “secret funders … who are using Haley as the instrument to prolong the Republican primary and to prevent the beginning of the general election.”

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk has also claimed that Haley’s real goal is a third-party run to thwart Trump. 

“She’s not really running against Donald Trump” for the GOP nomination, the eponymous host said on The Charlie Kirk Show, instead speculating that she’s building “a No Labels ticket” in order “to do the bidding of Liz Cheney, which is to try to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.”

“What if,” he wondered, “Nikki Haley was offered a very nice life if she runs as ‘No Labels Nikki’?” 

“She can live the life of a multimillionaire — all to try to take 3, 4, 5, 6, 7% from Donald Trump,” he hypothesized. “I refuse to believe she's just going to disappear. She’s talking and acting like a saboteur.”

Kirk then hosted Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer, who has pushed the same argument that Haley is “running No Labels” since she lost South Carolina. Fleischer reiterated his belief that Haley is “going to try to create that zone” in the center for voters who disapprove of both Biden and Trump.

“This is something worth watching,” he cautioned.