Haley's Dilemma: How to Reduce Trump Without Alienating Republican Voters

Nikki Haley, looking to send a message to undermine Donald J. Trump's appeal to Republican voters, challenged him on Sunday for the $83 million judgment for defaming a woman he was already guilty of sexually assaulting, and said she “absolutely” trusted the jury's verdict. for the writer, E. Jean Carroll.

But she stopped short of issuing the civil judgment and award in New York that prevented him from returning to the presidency, leaving that judgment to the voters.

Four weeks before what could be the decisive Republican primary in South Carolina, Ms. Haley is trying to navigate an extremely narrow and treacherous path, finding a way to shrink Trump's hold on the party's electorate without upsetting conservative voters. decisively against her. they have destroyed other Trump critics.

Her statements against him have endeared her to donors in both parties, swelling her coffers and keeping her in the race. But a series of different messages has so far done little to actually attract voters.

“This makes her excited,” said Representative Ralph Norman, the only Republican member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina to support Ms. Haley. “She's in this thing. The experts say: go away. Why? We've only had two primaries. If she gets shot in South Carolina, then do so, but she is the candidate. She calls.”

Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and Trump's first ambassador to the United Nations, appeared on NBC's Meet the Press and continued her recent, more aggressive criticism of the overwhelming frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. She has taken the opportunity in the weeks following her disappointing losses in Iowa and New Hampshire to link his age to President Biden's, telling Republican primaries that both men suffer from cognitive and physical deficiencies. She also went straight after Trump's “rants” and said a “distracted” president is exactly what foreign adversaries want to see.

Ms. Haley, moreover, has sought to gently remind voters of the former president's legal danger, without outright dismissing Mr. Trump's repeated claims that the civil lawsuits and four separate criminal cases he faces are political “witch hunts.”

“I absolutely trust the jury and I think they made their decision based on the evidence,” Ms. Haley said in her interview, as Mr. Trump continued to call for “complete immunity” from prosecution and maintaining his innocence at his social media. platform.

She added, “The American people will take him off the ballot. I think this is the best way to move forward, is to not let him play the victim. Let him play the loser.”

Trump's attacks on Ms. Haley — in which she mocked her clothes, called her “bird brain” and said she was “almost a radical left Democrat” — appear to have boosted her fundraising, fueled her willingness to to stay and win the race. her only sympathy within the party.

The super PAC backing her, the SFA Fund, announced Thursday that it had raised $50.1 million in the second half of 2023, exceeding the amount raised by the main super PAC supporting Mr. Trump supported. That amount would keep Ms. Haley in “for the long term,” said Mark Harris, chief strategist for the SFA.

Ms Haley refused on Sunday to even consider quitting the race. While she said she needed to improve on her second-place finish (43 percent) in New Hampshire after the South Carolina primary on Feb. 24, she did not say she needed to win her home state.

“I have to show that I'm stronger in South Carolina than I am in New Hampshire,” she said. “Should that be a victory? I don't think this is necessarily a victory. It must certainly be close.”

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt responded: “Again, Nikki can't name a state she can win.”

Ms. Haley's search for a message is proving extremely difficult with a Republican primary electorate inclined to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, said Dave Carney, a conservative political consultant who saw her sifting through the messages in New Hampshire.

Former Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey attempted to attack Trump's integrity head-on, questioning his commitment to the Constitution and calling him a threat to the Republic. All that did was earn him the enmity of most Republican voters, and he quit before a vote was cast in the state he was targeting, New Hampshire.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tried to be Trump 2.0 — a younger, more effective and less chaotic version of the former president — but was told by voters in Iowa and New Hampshire that they preferred the original version.

Ms. Haley has tried a series of arguments for why she is a better candidate than Mr. Trump: she has raised his legal problems, which are numerous; she has offered election options – she, not Mr Trump, would handily defeat President Biden, as polls suggest; she has said it is time for a new generation of leadership, an end run around his age, telling Republicans, egged on by conservative commentators, that Mr Biden has passed into senility and Mr Trump is no different; and she has paired both men as Beltway players.

“Trump has become an insider,” she said on Sunday. “That's what it comes down to. He is more interested in pleasing the elected class than in pleasing the people.”

That “chosen class” has shown no inclination to back down from Mr. Trump, who has now been found liable for sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll, who has been ordered by a New York jury to pay her $83 million in actual and punitive damages to pay damages for defaming her. , and then he is convicted on charges of corporate fraud that could cost him much of his New York real estate empire.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump took to social media to rail against New York Attorney General Letitia James, “who sat comfortably and confidently in the courtroom with her shoes off, arms folded, a Starbucks coffee and a BIG smile on her face” anticipating the next big decision against him, which he preemptively dismissed as a “hoax” from a “rigged trial.”

Tim Scott, the South Carolina Republican who was appointed to the Senate by Ms. Haley but now supports Mr. Trump, admitted on ABC's “This Week” that language like “birdbrain” can be “much more provocative than mine.” but he disputed Ms. Haley’s attacks on Mr. Trump.

“Talking about someone's age is inappropriate when, above all, he is competent, qualified and poised to be the next president of the United States,” he said, suggesting that Ms. Haley had lost the voice of older Republicans with her attacks.

On Saturday evening, at a rally in Mauldin, S.C., Ms. Haley let her anger at Mr. Scott shine through when she told her supporters, “I'm going to let y'all deal with Tim Scott,” prompting boos for the junior senator stands.