Why Haley is rising for Trump among rivals

If you fell asleep while watching the Republican primaries, I wouldn’t blame you. But maybe it’s worth cheering up a bit.

Nikki Haley has won plenty in recent months in the polls that she is on the verge of surpassing Ron DeSantis as Donald J. Trump’s main rival in the race.

With Ms. Haley still trailing Mr. Trump by more than 50 percentage points in national polls, her rise does not exactly jeopardize his path to the nomination. In any case, she is a classic faction candidate: someone who has built a resilient support base by meeting the wishes of a minority of the party. So if you’re only reading this because there’s a good chance Trump is in danger, you can go back to sleep.

But while it’s still hard to imagine a Haley victory, her emergence could make this race more interesting, especially in the early states, where voting will begin in six weeks. Ms. Haley is now neck-and-neck with Mr. DeSantis in Iowa, a state he is counting on to reverse a years-long downward spiral in the polls. She is well ahead of Mr. DeSantis in New Hampshire and South Carolina, two states where a moderate South Carolinian like her should do relatively well.

Ms. Haley finds herself in an intriguing position. Even without additional profits in the next 40 days, a result in line with today’s Voting in Iowa could be enough for her to claim a moral victory heading into New Hampshire and possibly even clear the field of her major rivals. DeSantis would struggle to continue in the race if he finished 27 points behind Mr. Trump, as polls show today. And Chris Christie would come under pressure to withdraw from the race or risk enabling Trump, just as he did at the same time and place in 2016. If the stars align, it’s not inconceivable that Ms. Haley could become highly competitive in New Hampshire. , where she and Mr Christie together already command around 30 percent of the vote today.

The idea that Mrs. Haley could win New Hampshire may seem far-fetched, but historically, crazier things have happened. Late surges in Iowa and New Hampshire are so common that they are the rule rather than the exception. Of course, there is still a chance that such a wave could belong to Mr. DeSantis, who has received major endorsements from Iowa from prominent evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats and Gov. Kim Reynolds. It is also possible that nothing will change in the next 40 days. But there’s no reason to be terribly surprised if Ms. Haley just keeps winning. She will have the resources to compete, especially since she has recently received the support of the political network founded by the Koch brothers.

As a precedent, John McCain is probably the best analogy. Given the numbers, George W. Bush is a strong comparison to Mr. Trump. Both had 60 percent or more of the Republican vote nationwide and started with a seemingly comfortable lead of about 45-15 in New Hampshire. Initially, Mr. McCain did not appear to be Mr. Bush’s strongest challenger. But in the end, he won New Hampshire 49-30, clearing the field and ultimately winning seven states.

Winning seven states would be very impressive for Ms. Haley, as it was for Mr. McCain. It would also mark a pretty clear shift from the current, currently uncompetitive Republican race. (Mr. Trump would probably win all fifty states if we had a national primary today.) But to state the obvious: If she were to win seven states, she would be much further away from winning the nomination than she would be. probably sounds. And while caveats to Mr. Trump’s legal challenges should be noted here, this is probably close to the best-case scenario for Ms. Haley.

That’s because it has only gained traction by catering to the needs of a party wing, especially a wing dissatisfied with the party’s frontrunner — in other words, an archetypal factional candidate.

These types of candidates are a common feature of contested primaries, as even the most formidable front-runners struggle to appeal to every element of a diverse party. George W. Bush, for example, was one of the strongest primary candidates ever, but as a southern evangelical conservative he was always out of step with northern moderates, leaving a natural opening in 2000 for a candidate who appealed to that faction: Mr. McCain .

Looking back, you can probably think of a faction candidate in almost every presidential primary cycle. Bernie Sanders, John Kasich, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Howard Dean, Pat Buchanan and Jesse Jackson are just the beginning of a very long list of candidates who have gained a foothold by offering an often but not always disaffected faction exactly what they need. popular.

If you haven’t noticed, all of these faction candidates have lost their races. That’s no coincidence. It’s quite a challenge to make a strong appeal to a faction and still somehow become the favorite of the rest of the party. It’s not impossible to pull off, but it does require special circumstances – such as an unpopular front-runner, or a faction so large and popular that the distinction between a mere ‘faction’ and the ‘mainstream’, such as the conservative movement in the 1970s.

But if faction candidates usually lose, under the right circumstances they can have a big advantage in gaining support in the race. By definition, these candidates have a strong appeal to a narrow, but often considerable, support base. On the other hand, candidates who are generally attractive may struggle to become anyone’s favorite — especially if there is already a strong, broadly appealing frontrunner, such as Mr. Trump or Mr. Bush.

Consider how often faction favorites outlast the more conventional, mainstream candidates who appear to be stronger candidates in many ways. Was Jesse Jackson stronger than John Glenn in 1984? Was Rick Santorum much stronger than Tim Pawlenty in 2012? Probably not. In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, Mr. Glenn and Mr. Pawlenty would likely have defeated the likes of Mr. Jackson and Mr. Santorum. But these losing mainstream candidates could not find clear ground in a race against a broadly attractive front-runner, while the faction candidates built a resilient and insular base of support.

The same can be said of Ms. Haley today. Is she a stronger candidate than Mr. DeSantis? It doesn’t seem that way. A HarrisX/The Messenger poll shows Mr. DeSantis with a two-to-one lead over Ms. Haley if Mr. Trump were to drop out of the race. But Ms. Haley is making a direct appeal to the relatively moderate, highly educated independents and Republicans who don’t support Trump, setting her up for a resilient base. It is a base that, almost by definition, even Mr. Trump cannot touch.

DeSantis, on the other hand, has done surprisingly little to appeal to voters who dislike Trump. He is running as an orthodox conservative — another Ted Cruz, except this time against a version of Mr. Trump with much stronger conservative credentials than the one who lost Iowa eight years ago. If Ms. Haley did not enter the race, Mr. DeSantis might begrudgingly win over many of her supporters, but his transformation into a Cruz-like Republican is part of what created the space for a Ms. Haley in the first place.

As with the caucus candidates before her, the same qualities that make Ms. Haley appealing to Trump’s opponents make her a poor fit for the rest of the party. Most Republicans Agree with Mr. Trump on Immigration, foreign policy, trade and other policies that distinguish Mr. Trump from his skeptics. This is a conservative, populist party. A moderate, establishment-backed candidate could take the path of least resistance to gain 25 percent of the vote in a race against a populist conservative like Trump. But the road to 50 percent is much more difficult.