Nikki Haley’s sudden surge is an insight into the ideological indecision that paralyzes the right’s marginal anyone-but-Trump movement.
Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley got a big boost on Tuesday after the powerful Koch network announced plans to back her campaign with a mountain of outside spending. Americans for Prosperity Action, one of the nation’s largest right-wing anti-Trump groups, offered its “full support” to the former U.N. ambassador — along with a hefty chunk of the over $70 million its aligned groups have raised so far this year.
As I’ve written in the past, Haley would be the consensus nominee in a functional Republican Party. In a sign of just how strong Haley is, she’s even holding her own in today’s Trumpfied GOP — just look at her steadily rising polls, or her skillful use of primary debates to effectively sideline both Vivek Ramaswamy and former headliner Ron DeSantis. Washington’s elite Democratic consultants were already whispering about Haley’s capable debate performances. Now those whispers carry an air of concern.
If Haley’s rise is worrying for Democrats, it’s devastating for DeSantis and the rest of the GOP’s also-ran presidential contenders. More than anything, Haley’s latest endorsements give her the perfect justification to remain in the race. That’s a recipe hand-crafted to deny DeSantis the momentum he needs to secure the nomination, while ensuring the American people are subjected to an even more protracted and bitter Republican primary.
Haley’s rise stymies the fledgling internal Republican effort to consolidate behind a single non-Trump candidate. DeSantis spent much of last year raising expectations — and gobs of donor money — in large part because he was the right’s main alternative to Donald Trump. Within months of entering the race, though, DeSantis squandered all of his goodwill through egregious displays of awkwardness. Now Haley is rising in his place, but not enough to change the tough calculus of Trump’s 50-point lead among GOP voters.
Even if she can’t beat Trump for the nomination, Haley is still on track to bump DeSantis out of the race — a considerable feat in itself. Recent polling puts DeSantis just 3 points ahead of Haley in Iowa, which isn’t very interesting until you look at the longer trend line. DeSantis has shed nearly half of his Iowa support since June, while Haley tripled up. A third-place Iowa finish would be a humiliation for a DeSantis campaign that once confidently predicted a victory in the Hawkeye State.
The situation is even worse for DeSantis in New Hampshire, where Haleymentum is even more pronounced. DeSantis’s support in the Granite State is now just a third of what it was in May. Compare that to Haley, who vaulted from 3 percent back in May to a whopping 20 percent in the latest CNN/University of New Hampshire poll. The GOP’s institutionalists are prepared to cut bait on DeSantis. Back-to-back primary losses would seal the deal.
Despite all the Haley optimism floating around the media, it’s still unclear how much of her sudden ascent comes from the GOP grassroots and how much is manufactured by ultra-elite power players like the Koch network. Haley has brushed off criticisms that she’s just another political stand-in for moneyed interests, but that’s not very convincing when conservative billionaire Ken Griffin is dangling a giant sack of money over her head.
Haley also faces a more acute problem. Let’s say she does somehow upend the Republican primary and actually beats Trump. She’d then face the even tougher challenge of selling her regressive social policies to an America that staunchly rejects them. That’s especially clear on abortion, which Haley openly admits is a major political problem for the GOP. But behind Haley’s “soft-talk” is the same Republican anti-abortion extremism that Americans have rejected every single time it appears on the ballot.
Democratic admakers across the country would relish the opportunity to make Haley the poster child for Republican double-talk on abortion. This isn’t simply a messaging problem for Haley’s team to manage: polling data and actual election results have shown that voters aren’t interested in any version of the GOP’s anti-choice agenda. Reproductive rights is now a structural issue that no Republican can overcome — not even a former diplomat like Haley.
Nikki Haley’s sudden surge is an insight into the ideological indecision that paralyzes the right’s marginal anyone-but-Trump movement. In any other campaign cycle, Haley’s booming polls and bulging campaign coffers would signal a new force to be reckoned with, an emerging party leader, a potential president. In Trump’s GOP, she’ll likely only be remembered as the candidate who finally put Ron DeSantis out of his misery.
Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.
