Nikki Haley is returning to New Hampshire this week to solidify her position as former President Donald Trump’s chief rival in the 2024 Republican presidential race.
She has been gaining ground in the race, especially in New Hampshire.
Building on the momentum she carried out of the two Republican presidential debates, Ms. Haley has leapfrogged past Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to a distant second place in the polls behind Mr. Trump.
She has proved to be a well-rounded candidate with the chops to engage in policy debates that motivate Republican voters, and she has the soft touch to connect with voters on the retail level, said Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College.
“She is kind of threading the needle where she doesn’t turn off pro-Trump Republicans, but at the same time, she is definitely the beneficiary of the people who are not going to vote for Donald Trump,” he said.
Mr. Trump, taking notice of Ms. Haley’s ascent, has nicknamed her “Birdbrain.”
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The pro-Haley bandwagon, meanwhile, is growing.
Former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas endorsed Ms. Haley this week after pulling the plug on his long-shot bid and rallied others to join him on Team Haley.
“If we wait much longer, we will anoint Mr. Trump as the leader of our party,” Mr. Hurd said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Ms. Haley has the clearest path to victory, the character and credentials to lead, the willingness to take on Mr. Trump, and the conservative record needed to beat Joe Biden.”
Conservative columnist George Will echoed that sentiment. He called on Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina to follow suit and support Ms. Haley against Mr. Trump.
Ms. Haley raised $11 million in the third quarter of the year and entered October with $9 million to spend in the primary, her campaign announced.
Mr. DeSantis had $5 million in primary funds.
The Trump campaign said it brought in $45.5 million in the third quarter through his political committees, with $36 million designated for the primary race.
Ms. Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration and a former governor of South Carolina, has held more than 50 events in New Hampshire. She plans to add to that tally during a two-day campaign swing. She will kick things off with a pair of town halls before filing for the New Hampshire primary ballot and speaking at the New Hampshire Republican Party’s First in the Nation Leadership Summit.
“Nikki Haley told Granite Staters she would earn every vote — and that’s what she is doing,” said Haley spokesperson Ken Farnaso. “Our momentum continues to build, and we’re in it to win it.”
Ms. Haley, 51, is the sole woman in the field and has distanced herself from her former boss. Her message: It is time for a new generation of leaders, and voters are tired of the distractions and noise that dominate politics in the Trump era.
Yet she has vowed, if elected president, to pardon Mr. Trump if he is convicted of federal crimes.
Ms. Haley has seized on the bloodshed in Israel to flash her foreign policy credentials and criticize President Biden’s performance on global affairs.
She said the U.N. Human Rights Council’s response to the horrific Hamas attacks on Israel shows the organization to be a “farce.” She said it is time to “eliminate Hamas” and bring Iran “to its knees.”
“Americans and the West need to wake up because we are too distracted, and we can’t be so arrogant to think this cannot happen on our soil,” she said on Fox News. “We have to have the backs of our friends. We have to understand it is not that Israel needs America; it is America needs Israel because they are the first line of defense against Islamic terrorism.”
Ms. Haley warned Republicans: “We can’t chase Democratic chaos with Republican chaos.”
“We have to start looking forward,” she said. “We have to leave the negative, the baggage, and the headlines of the past and start realizing this is a new world we are in, and this is evil, and we have to have the moral clarity to know the difference between good and bad, between right and wrong, between good and evil.”
Since the first Republican presidential debate in August, Ms. Haley has nearly doubled her polling average in Iowa and more than tripled her support in New Hampshire. She also sits in second place in her home state of South Carolina.
New Hampshire has played a vital role in past primary races and has a penchant for surprises.
Pat Buchanan defeated Bob Dole in New Hampshire in the 1996 primary race, renewing questions about the strength of the Dole campaign. George H.W. Bush’s victory in the state in 1988 helped right his ship after losing the Iowa caucuses. The story was similar for Sen. John McCain in 2000 before he went on to win the nomination.
Mr. Trump’s allies say Ms. Haley and the rest of the field are dreaming if they think they can poke a hole in the impending sense that Mr. Trump cannot be stopped in New Hampshire or elsewhere.
“Donald Trump is going to win Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — in that order, by record margins,” said Corey Lewandowski, a New Hampshire-based Republican Party strategist who served as the first campaign manager of Mr. Trump’s 2016 bid. “This primary race is over.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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