Haley is still struggling with Trump’s grip on their party

Nikki Haley has argued lately that former President Donald J. Trump has transformed the Republican Party into his personal “box.” In media appearances and at rallies as she crisscrosses the country ahead of Super Tuesday this week, she has argued that Mr. Trump has installed loyalists in key party positions and pushed for changes to primary rules to serve himself.

Ms. Haley has suggested that the Republican National Committee risks becoming his “legal slush fund” for the four criminal cases he faces. She has raised alarm over Republicans’ losses in the election, with candidates championed by Mr Trump. And she has even hedged her responses on whether she would support the Republican candidate if he wins.

“We are in a ship with a hole in it — that hole is Donald Trump,” she declared Wednesday to loud cheers at a performing arts theater near Salt Lake City. This new approach is a sharp turn from the more calibrated tone she struck during most of the Republican nominating contest.

When she entered the race last year and became Mr. Trump’s first major challenger, Ms. Haley, who was ambassador to the United Nations, took only vague swipes at her former boss, vowing to “throw away the old ideas and faded ideas.” transcend’. names from the past.” She tended to mention him only when asked, mixing criticism with praise, an approach that made her a reluctant messenger for the small but not insignificant segment of Republicans looking for an alternative to the former president.

Now, after a string of losses to Trump (and a narrow victory in the Washington DC primaries), she is struggling with his staying power among her party’s base. The discomfort with her position — neither all-in nor entirely against — is not new for Ms. Haley or other Republicans, but reflects the existential question they face.

It’s also one she struggled with even before joining his administration. According to one of her memoirs, Ms. Haley canceled an appearance on NBC’s “Today Show” the morning after the 2016 presidential election because she was unprepared to discuss the topic of the day: what Trump’s unexpected victory could mean for the future of the Republican Party.

Nearly eight years later, after a stint in his administration, she finally appears ready to speak out — but possibly too late to change the state of her race against him.

Ms. Haley continues to run on a platform that suggests a return to traditional conservative values, forward-looking policies and a largely positive message of generational change. But ultimately she failed to escape a bitter battle for the leadership of the Republican Party.

“I know you all want to change the direction of our country, and we can want that all day, but that’s not going to happen if we can’t win,” Ms. Haley warned Republicans last month in north Detroit. suburb. “We are talking about the heart and soul of our country.”

Ms. Haley’s campaign has been largely shaped by Mr. Trump, but not by her choice. She has long tried to bring together a coalition of Republicans who like his policies but not his character, and a smaller contingent of Republicans who reject him entirely.

But in Iowa and New Hampshire, Trump devotees tended to view her with skepticism or worse. Some recalled that she had initially claimed that she would not go against him. Others described her as a traitor, a flip-flopper or not Republican enough. Her measured tone towards him did not always arouse much enthusiasm even among the independents.

Many voters who were open to other candidates wanted to hear a stronger rebuke of Mr. Trump’s actions, which Ms. Haley seemed reluctant to provide.

“I think she should have been tougher on him all along,” said Chuck Hill, 76, a Republican business owner who heard her speak this month in Camden, S.C.

Ms. Haley has dismissed claims that she should have taken tougher action against the former president sooner. “If I had done that in the beginning, I would have been a Chris Christie,” she said after casting her vote in Kiawah Island, S.C., referring to the former New Jersey governor who dropped out of the race in January. “My goal was to make sure we took it one person at a time and one competitor at a time.”

During a roundtable with reporters in Washington on Friday, Ms. Haley said her turning point was when Mr. Trump threatened her donors and said they would be “permanently excluded from the MAGA camp.” She blamed the media for his dominance and suggested that a Trump victory had long been considered a foregone conclusion. And despite spending a lot of time on her new approach, she argued that her candidacy was not aimed at Mr. Trump.

“Everyone kind of assumes this is an anti-Trump movement, and in reality it’s not,” she said, describing herself instead as “pro-America.” “This is a movement where people want to be heard.”

Still, Ms. Haley, who has said she will stay in the race as long as she is competitive, has stepped up her attacks ahead of Super Tuesday, when 15 states and one territory will vote. She trails Mr. Trump far in every state with available polling data, including Massachusetts, where she has the most favorable ground. But her criticism of Mr. Trump, along with her promises to bring back a sense of normalcy to American politics, resonates with the stubborn hopefuls who see her as taking a critical stand for democracy and believing she stands for stability can provide care at home and abroad.

Her recent Michigan and Super Tuesday events, mostly held in various suburbs home to the moderate and highly educated voters who form crucial parts of her base, have been energetic and packed with hundreds of people, even though she has done little to no campaigning. infrastructure in many of these places.

Some attendees came to visit her for the first time. Many were Republicans or independents who had once been Republicans and now consider themselves politically homeless and rudderless.

At a university performing arts center in Orem, outside Salt Lake City, Dave and Cathy Opthof, both Republicans, wore Haley campaign shirts that read “Permanently Barred.” They were convinced that Ms. Haley was the best candidate to take on Mr. Trump since her breakthrough performance in the first national debate, even though she was slow to come out against him, they said.

“We have been anti-Trump since he started,” Mr. Opthof said. “Trump scares me to death. We don’t want a dictator. We will lose our democracy – that is very clear.”