Republican presidential candidates have another shot before the Iowa caucuses to convince GOP voters they are best suited for the nomination during Wednesday’s fourth primary debate in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
For Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, the top two candidates behind former President Donald Trump, the chance to face off in front of a national stage could spark fireworks.
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Both DeSantis and Haley are battling to become the chief alternative rival to Trump, the front-runner in the race. But for DeSantis, the stakes are even higher amid internal problems with his affiliated super PAC Never Back Down, shrinking poll numbers, and an insurgent Haley campaign that is now rivaling him for second place in state polls.
The Florida governor has bet his campaign viability on winning the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15. In a spectacle that jolted his campaign, the Florida governor even battled against Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) in a Fox News debate last week. The jostling with Newsom showed a more aggressive side of DeSantis that could be repeated Wednesday night against Haley.
“Ron DeSantis dominated Gavin Newsom last week by vigorously articulating why his conservative record and vision for the future represents the best way forward for the country when contrasted with the Biden-Newsom agenda,” said Andrew Romeo, DeSantis’s campaign communications director, in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “We are now eager to go back to the primary and remind Republicans why Ron DeSantis is the only one on stage who can defeat Donald Trump for the nomination and Joe Biden for the White House to ensure those liberal policies are reversed and America’s revival gets kicked off.”
Yet a more aggressive attack against Haley during the debate comes with risks.
Haley’s surging campaign came on the heels of standout performances in the first three debates in which she soundly blasted other rivals, including biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. The former ambassador and South Carolina governor is a formidable opponent, receiving far less criticism than DeSantis regarding sparring on the debate stage. Polling over the last three months reflects her debate success.
In a NewsNation-Decision Desk HQ poll released on Monday, 60% of Republicans surveyed chose Trump as their pick for president. DeSantis and Haley were statistically tied for second place at 11% and 10%, respectively, with biotech entrepreneur Ramaswamy at 6% and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 3%. When DeSantis launched his 2024 campaign in late May, he was the only candidate comfortably in second place behind Trump, which Haley is now approaching in polls.
Trump leads his rivals at 61.3% according to a RealClearPolitics poll average, while DeSantis polls 13.2%, Haley at 10.2%, Ramaswamy at 5%, and Christie at 2.5%.
“It looks like he’s on a downward trajectory, and obviously that’s a problem for him,” said Wayne King, president of Old North Strategies and a former chief of staff to former North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows. “And Nikki Haley is on an upward trajectory. So it seems like they’re trading space two and space three in the polls.”
Haley’s campaign claimed that the former ambassador would continue to make the case for new leadership during Wednesday’s debate.
“Millions of Americans are still meeting Nikki Haley. She’s gone into every debate making the case for why we need a new generation of conservative leadership who will leave the chaos of the past behind,” said Olivia Perez-Cubas, Haley’s campaign spokeswoman. “Voters like her toughness and moral clarity, and that’s why she’s the only candidate on the rise.”
Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist based in Florida, suggested that he would advise DeSantis to link Haley to unpopular GOP politicians. “If I’m the DeSantis team, I would turn around and label Nikki Haley as [Sen.] Mitt Romney [R-UT] in heels,” O’Connell said, referencing one of Trump’s top GOP foes.
But King cautioned that could backfire given Ramaswamy’s attacks against Haley, which have backfired. “I think it is very hard for a male candidate to attack a female candidate. That is very tricky,” he said. “You cannot come off mean-spirited, and you cannot come off angry. And if any of the two of those things happen, I think that is a negative on Gov. DeSantis.”
During the third GOP debate last month, Ramaswamy attempted to attack Haley’s daughter for using TikTok, a social media platform Haley has criticized for its Chinese ownership. Haley responded by calling him “scum” and admonishing him to leave her daughter “out of your voice.”
In particular, King points to Haley’s ability to humanize the abortion debate with suburban women, a key voting bloc that will help determine the 2024 election, that her male rivals lack. “We have to look beyond a white male being our candidate all the time and being our spokesperson for our party,” he said. “Somebody like Nikki Haley or other females in our Republican movement, I think, are good folks to talk about issues, especially with the abortion issue and with women issues that people care about and moms care about.”
Lilly J. Goren, professor of political science at Carroll University and host of the New Books Network political science podcast, claimed that Haley’s political record showed her acumen at handling attacks. “She is not necessarily what I would consider to be a shrinking violet,” Goren said. “I think that there are some issues that might be considerations around optics. But at the same time, I don’t think that Gov. Haley would be somebody who would shrink in the face of attacks from Ron DeSantis.”
Yet DeSantis’s campaign has increased its recriminations against Haley from her relationships with Chinese companies while serving as governor to her past comments about the murder of George Floyd and her comments about how former 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton encouraged her to run for office. The Washington Post gave the campaign four Pinocchios for an ad from Fight Right, a new super PAC supporting DeSantis, that left out Haley disavowing Clinton’s ideological views.
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Despite how much the two candidates lambast each other, Trump is still steamrolling his opponents and is not only skipping the fourth GOP debate; he won’t even be holding a counterevent to distract attention. The former president will instead hold a private fundraiser in Florida. Haley and DeSantis are simply battling for second place roughly 40 days ahead of the Iowa caucuses. If Trump were to win the caucuses by 40% or more, it could effectively knock his rivals out of the primary.
“Not having the counterprogramming is kind of an interesting turn. But maybe he does think he has it in the bag,” Goren said of Trump and Iowa. “It certainly pushes into New Hampshire with the wind in his sails, and is anybody going to be able to do anything in New Hampshire then that pushes him aside in any way? I don’t think so. But who knows?”
