As I expected, today’s Morning Jolt, floating the idea of a Ron DeSantis-Nikki Haley unity ticket, has spurred a lot of responses from fans of DeSantis and Haley. Many of these responses are in the vein of “My favorite candidate, [Desantis or Haley], would never sully themselves with a terrible running mate like [Desantis or Haley]! [Desantis or Haley] is the best choice and the best chance Republicans have, while [Desantis or Haley] is the worst choice, a sellout and/or an extremist, a sure loser, and someone I could never vote for! How could you ever think that a supporter of [Desantis or Haley] would support [Desantis or Haley] as the vice president?”
Let me throw some more unwanted cold water on your face. Whether you prefer DeSantis or Haley, your candidate is currently about 30 percentage points behind in Iowa, about 30 percentage points behind in New Hampshire, about 30 percentage points behind in South Carolina, and nearly 50 percentage points behind nationally. This is consistent across all pollsters. You can find Trump leads that are a few points smaller here and a few points larger here, but the overall picture is very clear. Trump is way ahead. DeSantis and Haley are well behind, fighting over a distant second place.
Whether you prefer Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, your preferred candidate must pick up twenty to thirty percentage points of support in the next six weeks, just to make this race competitive. The fact that you do not like hearing this does not make it any less true. Call me a uniparty stooge, call me a doomsayer, call me an idiot, your candidate is still in the exact same position I described. To quote a bold and revolutionary leader who cut crime and poverty in half, “dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same.”
Based on past history, DeSantis and Haley are probably going to turn in at least a pretty good debate performance tonight. And yet, no matter how good either or both perform tonight, there is not likely to be much change in the level of support. Maybe one or both go up a few points, maybe they go down a few points. There is no scenario where we wake up tomorrow morning, or next week, and see either DeSantis or Haley has jumped into the 40 to 50 percent range.
In other words, both DeSantis and Haley need all the help they can get, even if it comes from each other. I suspect neither campaign thinks particularly highly of the other right now. But if you’re pulling for either, your preferred candidate doesn’t have the luxury of deciding they don’t want certain potential allies. A DeSantis fan scoffing at an alliance with Haley, or vice versa, isn’t all that different from Kari Lake snarling that McCain Republicans should “get the hell out” in the 2022 gubernatorial race. Your candidate doesn’t have enough support right now!
I can’t guarantee that joining forces would ensure that DeSantis-Haley ticket would overtake Trump. But I can guarantee that continuing the current approach – the same old remarks and speeches, at the same old campaign stops in Iowa and New Hampshire, and the same old comments in one more debate – and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.