Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley‘s campaign is attempting to overcome the sense of inevitability surrounding former President Donald Trump‘s 2024 campaign ahead of New Hampshire‘s Jan. 23 primary.
Trump won Monday night’s Iowa caucuses by a commanding 30 points, while Haley finished in a disappointing third place behind Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), taking some steam out of her campaign.
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Now Haley is under immense pressure to win the Granite State’s primary, blocking Trump from winning the first two nominating states, or finishing in a close second place. But DeSantis’s failure to win in Iowa, despite the backing of Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) and a massive ground game, doesn’t bode well for Haley.
The former South Carolina governor is banking on a coalition of independent and Republican voters turned off by Trump to aid her campaign in the second nominating contest. Other allies including popular Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) and the influential Americans for Prosperity are campaigning, door-knocking, and spending money on her behalf. Haley has $28 million in ad support compared to the $15 million Trump has and $8 million DeSantis has in support in New Hampshire, according to AdImpact.
But with Trump leading Haley by an average of 13 percentage points in New Hampshire polls, the path to victory is arduous.
“I think she has to win in New Hampshire or this is over,” said Sara Chamberlain, CEO and president of the Republican Main Street Partnership. “If Trump wins New Hampshire, which tends to be a more center state because you’ve got Democrats and independents that can vote, if they vote for Donald Trump, this is done.”
Trump has scheduled at least five town halls in New Hampshire this week in a bid to take attention away from Haley’s campaign and ensure that he wins the primary next week. His campaign sent at least five emails on Tuesday alone slamming Haley over a range of issues from immigration and China to Haley’s past actions on raising taxes.
“I think the Trump people are concerned about Nikki Haley — that’s why he’s upped his game in New Hampshire,” Chamberlain said. “If they really thought this was a slam dunk, they wouldn’t be doing all these rallies. Especially now that Chris Christie has dropped out, if you put Chris Christie’s numbers together and Nikki Haley’s numbers she beats him. So he’s out working it.”
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, the Haley campaign remained resolute she can handle the former president. “Trump clearly knows that Nikki has the momentum, that’s why he’s spending millions attacking her,” Haley spokeswoman AnnMarie Graham-Barnes said. “She’s not taking anything for granted, and will continue to fight for every vote in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and beyond.”
Haley’s supporters also aren’t running away from battling the former president.
Sununu subtly knocked Trump during a Haley campaign event in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, on Tuesday.
“She gets it more than anybody is that we do the retail politics, person-to-person, let everyone ask you a question. Have those real interactions,” Sununu said of Haley. “And not just about doing the big town halls like the other guy does. Doesn’t answer any questions. Gets in his little fancy plane and flies back to, you know, Florida.”
Just one day after the Iowa caucuses, Haley’s campaign released a new ad targeting Trump and President Joe Biden and claiming that Haley was “the better choice for a better America.”
Campaign manager Betsy Ankney also sought to quell notions of Trump’s inevitability in a memo released late Monday night.
“Historically, incumbent presidents who have struggled in New Hampshire have failed to
recapture the White House,” Ankney wrote, citing former President Lyndon B. Johnson withdrawing from the presidential race after a poor showing in New Hampshire, along with former Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush losing the general election after extended battles following the Granite State’s primary.
“Currently, Donald Trump’s RCP average vote share in New Hampshire is 43.5%. That is
historically bad, trailing far behind Johnson, Ford, and Bush’s final numbers,” Ankney continued. “Trump’s weakness with Independents is well established. But a number in the low forties also indicates significant weakness with New Hampshire Republicans too.”
However, Christopher Galdieri, a political scientist at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, told the Washington Examiner that even if Haley does win in the Granite State, her path to the GOP nomination isn’t cinched just yet.
“The other part of the problem for her is that even if she manages that, then what?” Galdieri said. “How does she translate that into a campaign that can actually win when it moves on to South Carolina, when it gets to Super Tuesday in states that look a lot more like Iowa than they do in New Hampshire?”
In her home state of South Carolina, Haley is trailing Trump by 30 percentage points, 52% to 21.8%, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average. DeSantis tacitly acknowledged the small chance he has of placing well in New Hampshire and campaigned in the Palmetto State directly after the Iowa caucuses, amping up pressure on Haley. DeSantis’s campaign then followed up on Wednesday by announcing it was shifting resources to South Carolina, directly challenging Haley.
Haley declined to participate in any more debates that didn’t include Trump, prompting both CNN and ABC News to scrap their New Hampshire primary debates this week and early next week. The decision led to some criticism of Haley, which Galdieri, who works at the college that would have hosted the CNN debate, echoed.
“Wait, you’re running for president and you are giving up 90 minutes of airtime the Thursday before the election. Why would you do that?” he said. “Why would you not want to have yourself be in everybody’s living room? People here watch the local news and they tune in for the debates and it’s just sort of mystifying to me.”
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If Trump does win New Hampshire’s primary, Haley and DeSantis’s battle to emerge as the Trump alternative may prove to be all for naught.
But “when you’re hoping for your rival to spontaneously combust and that’s your best chance of winning, you’re not in great shape,” Galdieri concluded.
The former president faces 91 indictments across four criminal cases, a New York civil fraud case, and a defamation case from the writer E. Jean Carroll, and several states attempting to disbar him from the ballot citing the 14th Amendment’s ban against insurrectionists holding public office. Any of these situations could threaten Trump from appearing on the general election ballot in November.
