“Nikki Haley has called communist China our good friend”, “Democrats, Wall Street donors and globalists love Haley”, “Haley is a globalist. I put the United States first.”
Among other things, such claims are made by a former president who is running for the Republican presidential nomination Donald Trump and his campaign team have been in the public eye recently, when his opponent Nikki Haley’s support has been hurting.
Trump now seems to consider Haley as his most viable counter-candidate when the Republican primaries begin on Monday.
In national opinion polls, Trump is still the overwhelming number one, but Haley is stretched almost to the heels in the state of New Hampshire.
Trump has reacted to Haley’s rise by claiming the polls were rigged. In his Truth Social community service, he called Haley – the UN ambassador of his presidency, the former governor of South Carolina and a businesswoman – by the barking name he invented, Birdbrain, says the British newspaper The Guardian.
The primaries begin January 15th from Iowa, and the next is New Hampshire on January 23rd. The last primaries will be held on June 8, which means that by then each state and territory will have chosen their own presidential electors.
Electors choose their party’s presidential candidate at national party conventions. The Republicans hold their convention in July and the Democrats in August.
Even second place can matter
Trump’s lead over his competitors is so great that it seems almost impossible to catch up.
Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis, 45, and Haley, 51, are vying for second place, far behind Trump, according to polls. The support of both is more than ten percent, while Trump has more than 60 percent.
In some national surveys On January 12, Haley was second, followed by DeSantis.
However, second place in the race is not considered insignificant, writes, among others, the news channel NBC. Some Republicans looking for an alternative to Trump have told NBC that they are betting that one of the opposing candidates will emerge as a strong runner-up.
If the numerous lawsuits filed against him or his 77-year-old age get in Trump’s way, the second-place finisher would have the best chance of being selected as the Republican nominee.
The Economist magazine notes that legal processes take time away from Trump’s campaigning and it is even possible that voters will turn on him during the trials.
It also matters if some candidates withdraw in the middle of the primary campaign, in which case their supporters would switch to another candidate, points out the news channel ABC. A fierce critic of Trump recently withdrew Chris Christie. It would matter more if DeSantis or Haley left the game.
In the unlikely event that Trump withdraws, polls in Iowa and New Hampshire suggest a majority of his supporters would choose DeSantis or the businessman By Vivek Ramaswamy.
And if Trump becomes president, some of the candidates may hope for a place in Trump’s administration as a consolation prize, The Economist speculates.
Trump remained in the supporting role in the debate
As the primaries approach, Trump has criticized Haley even more, while previously the main target was DeSantis.
However, DeSantis has gotten to know Trump’s anger for running as Trump’s counter-candidate, even though Trump once supported DeSantis for governor. Trump has claimed DeSantis as nothingness and, in keeping with his style, gave him the nickname DeSanctimonious.
In the Jan. 10 debate in Iowa, DeSantis and Haley instead ignored Trump and attacked each other.
Both mainly complained that Trump did not join the debate, but spoke at the same time elsewhere. Trump already announced in Augustthat he will not participate in the pre-election debates, because people already know him.
DeSantis and Haley blamed each other of bad leadership. Haley criticized DeSantis for his wasteful presidential campaign and asked how he can lead the country if he can’t run the campaign.
DeSantis was one of the early favorites in the early stages of the presidential election, but his support has shrunk sharply.
There was also controversy about supporting Ukraine. DeSantis argued that Haley views the United States as a globalist with endless resources.
DeSantis represents the right wing of the Republican Party and has been described as a more subdued and younger version of Trump. In Florida, he has pushed through conservative laws, including abortion and school policy, and declared that “in Florida, the woke ideology is dying.”
Haley is also an opponent of abortion, a fierce supporter of the market economy and a representative of a hard line in foreign policy, but a relatively moderate Republican. She is the daughter of Indian immigrants and originally a Sikh who converted to Christianity.
Biden has no viable challenger
The Democrats start their primaries later than the Republicans, on January 23rd in New Hampshire.
President Joe Biden is an even more clear early favorite than Trump in the Republican Party.
For Biden, the key challenge of the primary is to mobilize those Democratic supporters who like him and see him as a successful president, but are not convinced that he should seek a second term, says a researcher John Shaw In an article from Southern Illinois University.
Of course, 81-year-old Biden has two challengers, a 71-year-old writer and a politician Marianne Williamson and a 54-year-old member of the House of Representatives, a businessman Dean Phillips.
Williamson ran for the Democratic presidential nomination as early as 2020, but withdrew due to low support.
Dean Phillips is a third-term congressman and multimillionaire who thinks Biden is a good president but too old to continue.