The case for Nikki Haley to win the Republican nomination.
I know what you’re thinking.
“Daniel, don’t kid yourself. No one not named Trump is winning the GOP bid for president in 2024.” After all, Trump is polling at 59.3% nationally according to 538. The former president is consistently the number one candidate in every major poll and his performance in a recent New York Times/Siena general election poll has sent senior Democrats into a panic.
But, for the sake of argument, just as an exercise, can we take seriously the possibility that someone other than Trump could actually earn the nomination? Bear with me for a moment as I argue that the architect of the insurrection isn’t invincible.
In the ongoing battle for what many are calling second place and a spot in the Trump White House, former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has emerged as the leader. In this article, I’ll:
- Examine Haley’s strengths in the current field
- Argue that Trump’s temperament and 2024 platform play to Haley’s strengths
- Predict a scenario that could earn Haley the 2024 bid
What makes Haley’s candidacy strong?
After trailing in most polls this year, Haley has gained on and overtaken “Trump without the baggage,” Florida Governor Ron Desantis. She recently earned the endorsement of conservative kingmaker Charles Koch, who pledged millions of dollars to the Haley campaign and is angling to hire thousands of organizers for the South Carolina native. It’s not hard to see why the Koch organization would back Haley so strongly; her candidacy is a real threat for the White House.
She is, in short: a reasonable conservative who can vaguely speak MAGA and hasn’t yet alienated herself from important factions of the GOP.
She is, in more detail:
- Openly critical of a Trump presidency on the grounds that it’s time for a new generation of leadership, without openly bashing him and alienating his supporters. She has expressed certain disapproval for Trump’s demeanor, while maintaining enough loyalty to him as a former member of the Trump White House.
- Solely in command of traditional conservative power structures, appealing to the Washington foreign policy hawks and Wall Street executives, figures who held GOP supremacy before 2016. And because she’s a more moderate candidate, she’s also mostly likely to earn Independents and Never-Trump-Republicans, two important blocs who either sat out or swung to Biden in 2020.
- Skeptical of the GOP’s increasingly extremist national agenda and persona. On abortion, an issue many say plays to Democrats strengths in 2024, Haley advocates for “humanism” and abandons the harsh rhetoric of her foes, calling for “national consensus” on a hotly contentious issue.
Why is she the best candidate to take on Donald Trump in a head-to-head field?
What are the strongest reasons for not supporting Trump? I can think of more than a few myself, but for an increasing number of Republican voters:
- His primary message in 2024 concerns political and legal retribution against Democrats and Republicans alike. His continuing championship of the Big Lie is the focal point of his messaging and to many voters he appears stuck in the past. Not only does it feel past-tense, it also feels like he’s in it for himself, now more than ever.
- His base is strong and large, but it’s not enough of the party or the overall electorate to win. The alienation of Independents and Never-Trump Republicans could prove costly, especially in a race against a coalition candidate like Joe Biden.
- His positions are even more extreme in 2024 compared to 2016 and 2020. Trump flaunts his efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade and destroy reproductive freedom in his first presidency. He also paints a grave picture of immigration policy in his next administration: prominent and inhumane border detention camps and massive efforts to hunt and deport undocumented people embedded in our communities.
Each of Trump’s vulnerabilities match a distinct strength of Haley’s. As many GOP voters look to move on from the past and consider what else the Republican party has to offer, Haley is advocating for change, not more of the same. As many GOP voters look to build a winning coalition to challenge an electable and victorious Joe Biden, Trump’s alienation of the traditional conservatives who support Haley looms large. And finally, as many GOP voters grow uncomfortable with the extreme positions of their party, whether it concern abortion or immigration, Haley‘s moderation represents a distinct policy difference from the former president.
How could she earn the nomination?
Truthfully, none of this changes the vice-grip of the former president on the GOP electorate. As of this writing, Trump continues to lead the field with a 59.3% share of voters across the average of all national polls. Haley is even third (11.6%) to Desantis’s 12.6%. And, a vast majority of Republican voters are choosing Trump as their first choice and Desantis as their second in the field.
So how could she break through?
Unlike Haley, Desantis has been unable to convince Republican voters of a meaningful reason to choose him over Trump. His faux-bombastic nature is meant to appeal to the strongman fetish of the right, but his attacks on Trump don’t seem to stick with Republican voters. In this way, Desantis has mistakenly boxed himself in: he caters to the “Trump without the baggage” persona when it is convenient, but other times runs further to the right of Trump on issues like abortion and vaccines. I believe Republican voters see right through this paradox and don’t find Desantis to be the “Washington outsider” he claims to be. Further, the “where woke goes to die” Florida brand should only further strengthen Haley’s stance as the right choice for the middle of the road conservatives, independents, and Never-Trump-Republicans, who are needed to defeat Joe Biden.
With Desantis out of the race, you’ll have the strongest of two versions of the GOP; Trump’s MAGA, authoritarian, outsider brand of grievance politics and Haley’s conservative yet competent brand of reasonable politics. But what evidence is there to prove her brand bests Trump’s in a head-to-head competition?
The electability argument proves powerful at a desperate moment for the GOP.
In 2020, Biden beat Trump with a broad coalition of progressive and moderate Democrats, Independents, and Never-Trump Republicans. I predict that the same political forces that converged to propel Biden to the Democratic nomination in 2020 could come to Haley’s aid in 2024. In his case, Biden was the sensible candidate to his popular and populist foil, Senator Bernie Sanders. After a contentious primary, the Democrats consolidated around the person they thought had the best chance of earning broad support and consequently besting Trump. The same should go for Haley. Although Trump’s politics and base dominate the GOP, Republican power players could decide it’s not enough to earn the White House.
In a desperate bid to buck the losing trend of 2018, 2020, and 2022, could major Republicans turn to Haley to win? GOP Chair Ronna McDaniel has earned a reputation for two things: sticking by Trump and losing. The 2018 midterms were a historic victory of Democrats, 2020 produced the only incumbent to lose his re-election bid since George H.W. Bush in 1992, and the 2022 midterms didn’t exactly produce the Red Wave many were expecting. Remember Trump’s joke that Republicans would get tired of winning? No one’s laughing anymore.
Trump’s mounting legal pressure could sour some conservatives on his ability to govern effectively.
Pair the electability argument with Trump’s mounting legal woes and you have a Republican party that’s concerned by his ability to both win and govern in a second term. Whether the legal challenges against Trump across the nation prove successful, they will add more chaos to what will already be a chaotic White House by nature of Trump’s demeanor. Showing all signs that his temperament and distractions will inhibit his government from earning the kinds of legislative victories Republican power players demand, I can see them jumping ship in favor of a competent executive like Haley.
Where do we go from here?
Only time will tell if Haley can make use of her new resources and consolidate enough support to challenge Trump head-to-head. And even if Haley does pitch a near perfect game between now and July, she’s still facing long odds, for one reason.
What is the one thing that Haley depends on to earn the nomination? It’s the same thing that Republican voters, politicians, and media personalities alike have all lacked since Donald Trump broke onto the scene in 2015: courage. She’ll need some courage from a group of people who’ve repeatedly proven cowardly in their fealty to Trump. In order for Haley to win, enough people will need to free themselves of the MAGA grip on the Republican Party and make the choice that’s right for our republic.
Which choice will they make?
