Gov. Chris Sununu‘s (R-NH) endorsement of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley on Tuesday gave her campaign a much-needed boost as Haley battles the 2024 Republican field to become former President Donald Trump‘s chief competitor.
The former South Carolina governor is in a heated battle with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for second place in the primary. Sununu’s endorsement serves as a counterweight to Gov. Kim Reynolds’s (R-IA) endorsement of DeSantis in Iowa and likely blunts former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie‘s campaign as it barrels towards a make-or-break moment in next year’s New Hampshire primary.
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Yet political experts cautioned that Trump’s advantageous lead is still a formidable path that Haley will need to cross sometime during the first four early nominating states. If she or DeSantis can’t defeat Trump in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, or South Carolina, the former president could well be on the way to the nomination.
“This is a significant feather in her cap for New Hampshire. And as she continues to do well in Iowa, this will only be the energizing effect in New Hampshire,” Timothy Head, executive director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, told the Washington Examiner about the Sununu endorsement. “Momentum going into South Carolina is all she’s really looking for. And I think this at least gives the resources at her disposal to utilize.”
(AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)
Richard Arenberg, senior fellow in international and public affairs and visiting political science professor at Brown University, similarly agreed that the endorsement is a “positive” sign for Haley. “As a general rule, I don’t usually consider endorsements as having a really big impact. But I think it’s certainly a positive development,” Arenberg said.
David Winston, president of the Winston Group and a Republican pollster, pointed to Sununu’s popularity in the state during his 2022 reelection race as to why his endorsement will likely help Haley.
“You’re getting endorsed by the governor who carried the state by a large margin, so it helps,” Winston said. “Overall, he won the race by 16 percentage points, 57% to 41%. … He’s someone who clearly has the ability to get votes in the states. So everybody would have liked his endorsement. This is a guy who won by a significant margin.”
The biggest sufferer in Sununu choosing Haley is Christie, who had barely campaigned in Iowa, choosing instead to center the Granite State in his race to defeat Trump.
Sununu’s endorsement is a stinging loss for Christie as he trailed Haley in last month’s CNN-University of New Hampshire poll. The survey showed Trump at 42%, Haley at 20%, Christie at 14%, DeSantis at 9%, and Vivek Ramaswamy at 8%, a sign of Haley’s growing momentum in the race.
Yet no GOP rival is anywhere close to taking on Trump’s hold of the base.
The former president has consistently led his rivals in national and state-level polling throughout the primary. A RealClearPolitics poll average shows Trump maintaining his lead at 60.5%, DeSantis at 12.5%, Haley at 12.3%, Ramaswamy at 5%, and Christie at 2.9%.
“He’s still in a very strong position,” Arenberg added but said if Haley could perform well during the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses, it could carry her campaign to the New Hampshire primary eight days later. “I think the impact of what happens in Iowa will be important. I think she can finish third in Iowa and still do well in New Hampshire as long as she doesn’t sort of obviously underperform in Iowa.”
Head, of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, claimed that as Haley and DeSantis continue to battle for second place, the endorsement is the latest distinction to help Haley break through. “It’s another kind of brick in that wall. It’s hard to tell which one of those bricks kind of finally constitutes the completed picture, but it is meaningful,” he added.
Like Arenberg, Head said Haley doesn’t have to win the Iowa caucuses to continue in the primary. “You have to finish in the top four in Iowa but probably top three,” he said. “I don’t think she necessarily needs to win New Hampshire, but I do think she needs to have at least 25, probably more like 30-plus percent in New Hampshire to truly be considered. And then I would say that she probably at that point needs to win South Carolina.”
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Trump, however, is working to win the Iowa caucuses decisively, and should he win the New Hampshire primary, it may be too late for any other rival to stop him from becoming the GOP’s next standard-bearer.
“Trump just has a huge lead,” said Winston. “And he’s got a good sizable lead still in New Hampshire as well. Does Chris Sununu impact that? We’ll see. He certainly has the potential to, but there’s a difference between potential and the actual actualization of that.”
