When the history of the Republican 2024 presidential primaries is written, it won’t be hard to figure out why Donald Trump coasted to victory. But what might puzzle academics is why his major opponents waited so long to criticize the former president.
True, it would have been a gamble for Haley to have gone after Trump, hammer and tongs, looking to draw a sharp distinction between the former president and herself. Now, almost at the end of her campaign, Haley has decided to throw caution to the wind and open a line of attack on Trump that will probably echo in the wilderness.
“The race now moves to less Trump-friendly territory,” said Betsy Ankeny, Haley’s campaign manager, It’s true New Hampshire is less friendly than Iowa. But after New Hampshire are the Nevada Caucuses and the South Carolina primary. Trump is 50 points ahead in Nevada and 30 points ahead in South Carolina, Haley’s home state.
“It’s a crazy fine line she has to walk to not lose the small amount of Republican voters she has currently but continue to drive out independent voters,” said Mike Dennehy, a veteran New Hampshire GOP strategist who is unaffiliated in the primary. “She cannot go nuclear on Donald Trump because she will lose any Republican support she currently has if she does so.”
Chris Christie didn’t walk that line, even a little bit. He savaged the former president in speech after speech. It got him nowhere.
But Christie was already persona non grata in the GOP. Haley is going to criticize Trump less directly than Christie but still try to draw a sharp distinction with the former president.
One day after her third-place finish in Iowa, the former South Carolina governor’s campaign and a pro-Haley super PAC began promoting TV ads here depicting Trump as a bully and a liar. Her campaign released a memo calling the former president “more vulnerable than commonly believed.” And Haley announced she would not participate in two scheduled debates media outlets scheduled ahead of the New Hampshire primary unless Trump joined her on stage — suggesting she plans to ignore Ron DeSantis and train her fire on the frontrunner.
Together, these steps marked a pointed escalation from Haley’s tepid rebukes of Trump through the past year — and a new strategic approach as the race moves to New Hampshire, where she is polling closest to Trump and has her best, if not only, shot of wounding him.
The “unelectable” charge isn’t credible, not when everyone knows that Trump is currently polling ahead of Biden, albeit by less than the margin of error. As far as the “bully” charge, Trump supporters appear to like his style of going for the opponent’s jugular.
Some independents are turned off by that political style, and that’s where Haley can make up ground on Trump. New Hampshire is one of the only GOP primary states that allows independents to vote in the Republican primary. Haley is counting on the indies to carry her to victory.
Haley has far more working in her favor in New Hampshire than she did in Iowa. The state is less conservative, less religious and more independent than in Iowa. She’s got the backing of the state’s popular Republican governor, Chris Sununu. She has polling that shows her closing the gap with — and in at least one case coming within striking distance of — Trump. And she has a growing base of more moderate Republicans and independents who are turning her way on the heels of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s exit from the race last week.
Independents make up the largest voting bloc in New Hampshire, and are poised to play a major role in the GOP primary. Haley’s allies are already working in overdrive to secure Christie’s voters, a large majority of whom were expected, based on polling and interviews, to break for her.
The latest American Research Group poll has Haley and Trump dead even at 40% each. That poll may very well be an outlier given that Trump has never been ahead by less than double digits in that poll. Other polls have Trump ahead 35-50 points.
That ARG poll was taken before Iowa. Trump should get a nominal bump going into New Hampshire no matter how hard Nikki Haley tries to hit him.