Nikki Haley’s Pathway to a Competitive Race with Trump Is Now Visible

By Noah Rothman

Monday, December 18, 2023

 

What you’re about to read is not a likely scenario — not at this juncture. It is, however, a possible scenario. That plain distinction needs to be explicated for the benefit of those who are so addicted to a self-reinforcing fatalism that even the consideration of alternative outcomes is regarded as a contemptible delusion.

 

And yet, that outlook risks discounting the evidence that the 2024 Republican presidential primary could become a contest after all. On that, the latest CBS News/YouGov surveys of GOP primary voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are instructive.

 

CBS News/YouGov’s poll of Iowans is consistent with recent surveys that suggest the race is slipping away from Ron DeSantis. At 58 percent, Donald Trump maintains a commanding lead over his opponents. DeSantis trails with 22 percent, with Nikki Haley at 13 percent. But much of Trump’s support in Iowa is still soft support.

 

Among Iowa Republicans, 30 percent consider themselves “only Trump” Republicans. We can reasonably deduce that those 30 percent of “only Trump” voters contribute to Trump’s 58 percent, which suggests about half of Trump backers are still among the 45 percent of Iowa Republicans considering “Trump and other candidates.” If, on caucus night, Trump underperforms his prohibitive performance in the polls, it invites a news cycle focused not on Trump’s strength as a candidate but on his hidden weaknesses.

 

That news cycle would dog Trump over the eight-day interim between Iowa’s caucuses and New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary election. There, CBS News/YouGov found Haley surging. The former South Carolina governor’s support jumped by 18 points from September to 29 percent, while Trump’s declined by six points from 50 to 44 percent. Only one-third of Republicans in the Granite State say they’re not considering a vote for Haley, compared with 37 percent who say the same of the former president. Moreover, a majority of New Hampshire Republicans describe Haley as “likable,” suggesting room for growth if the ball bounces against Trump in Iowa.

 

There’s a ceiling on Haley’s support in New Hampshire in the form of Chris Christie, who still draws 10 percent of the vote. If the former New Jersey governor took National Review’s advice and abandoned his one-state presidential campaign before January 23, though, it’s likely that most of his voters would gravitate to Haley’s column. A strong performance by Haley — or even an outright victory — in New Hampshire would set the table for a fateful month to follow.

 

Given that Nevada has effectively sidelined itself amid an internal political crisis prompted by a convoluted effort to appease advocates of a Trump coronation, the next competitive contest would take place on February 24 in South Carolina. The Palmetto State has not been well polled in recent weeks, and no nonpartisan state polling has been released since South Carolina senator Tim Scott dropped out of the race. The polls we do have suggest that Trump is the prohibitive favorite to win that contest (as he is in all the others).

 

Still, if Trump spends four weeks limping into South Carolina while being hounded by his own underperformance in the early states, the former president may compound that crisis by succumbing to his own temptation to dominate the conversation. Trump has a habit of making a spectacle of himself when he’s not the center of attention. Yes, the sudden movements and frenetic gestures to which Trump would likely commit himself might help him regain his lost momentum. But they might also reinforce the misgivings about his nomination that would be apparent in the verdicts rendered by voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.

 

Michigan’s primary will follow South Carolina’s. There, Haley would benefit from the same conditions that are aiding her in New Hampshire — namely, the open-primary structure that allows independents and even Democrats to vote in the GOP contest. Michigan’s GOP changed the state’s rules so that most of its delegates are awarded by a caucus — and those delegates will be awarded only if the Republican National Committee decides against enforcing its own rules (always an option), which were designed to deter states from moving their primaries ahead of Super Tuesday. These complications notwithstanding, Michigan’s primary will still look familiar to political observers.

 

Given his prohibitive strength in the polls, anything short of a dominant showing by Trump could be reasonably characterized as an underperformance. Haley will have to confront the possibly detrimental narrative that she owes her political successes to non-Republicans if she once again beats expectations. Nevertheless, momentum is momentum, and Haley would have it.

 

If these chips fall accordingly, all bets are off heading into March 5, when 16 U.S. states and territories will hold their nominating contests. Any remaining candidates still in the race would be rendered afterthoughts, and Haley and Trump would be locked in a dogfight for delegates.

 

It’s necessary at this stage to restate the disclaimer: None of this is especially likely to happen. The polling suggests that Republican voters affirmatively like Trump. If they believe what they’re telling pollsters, the GOP believes the former president is a lock to beat Biden next November. They think Trump got a raw deal in 2020 and throughout his first term, and they want to see him vindicated. But among many Republicans, these are loosely held convictions. The qualms they’re quietly nursing could become something more threatening to the former president’s position if he is revealed to be weaker at the ballot box than public polling has indicated.

 

What is undeniable is that a scenario in which Haley runs competitively with Trump is easier to envision today than at any point in the 2024 cycle. You still have to squint to see her pathway to victory. But for the first time in this race, the outlines of that result are visible.