Nikki Haley is returning to New Hampshire this week to solidify her position as former President Donald Trump’s chief rival in the 2024 Republican presidential race.
She has been gaining ground in the race, especially in New Hampshire.
Building on the momentum she carried out of the two GOP presidential debates, she has leapfrogged past Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida into a distant second place in the polls behind Mr. Trump.
She has proved herself to be a well-rounded candidate with the chops to engage in policy debates that motivate Republican voters, and she has the soft touch to connect with voters on the retail level, said Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.
“She is kind of threading the needle where she doesn’t turn off pro-Trump Republicans, but at the same time she is definitely the beneficiary of the people who are not going to vote for Donald Trump,” he said.
Mr. Trump has taken notice of Ms. Haley’s ascent, nicknaming her “birdbrain.”
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The pro-Haley bandwagon, meanwhile, is growing.
Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd endorsed her this week after pulling the plug on his longshot bid and rallied others to join him on Team Haley.
“If we wait much longer, we will anoint Mr. Trump as the leader of our party,” Mr. Hurd said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Ms. Haley has the clearest path to victory, the character and credentials to lead, the willingness to take on Mr. Trump, and the conservative record needed to beat Joe Biden.”
Conservative columnist George Will echoed that sentiment, calling on Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, to follow suit, arguing Ms. Haley could be the best bet to stop Mr. Trump
Ms. Haley raised $11 million in the third quarter of the year, entering October with $9 million to spend in the primary, her campaign announced.
Mr. DeSantis had $5 million in primary funds.
The Trump campaign said it brought in $45.5 million in the third quarter through his political committees, with $36 million designated for use in the primary race.
Ms. Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and former governor of South Carolina, has held more than 50 events in New Hampshire. She plans to add to that tally during a two-day campaign swing. She will kick things off with a pair of town halls before filing for the New Hampshire primary ballot, and speaking at the New Hampshire GOP’s First in the Nation Summit.
“Nikki Haley told Granite Staters she would earn every vote — and that’s what she is doing,” said Haley spokesperson Ken Farnaso. “Our momentum continues to build and we’re in it to win it.”
Ms. Haley is the sole female in the field and has distanced herself from her former boss. Her message: it is time for a new generation of leaders and voters are tired of the distractions and noise that dominate politics in the Trump era.
At the same time, she has vowed, if elected president, to pardon Mr. Trump should he be convicted of federal crimes.
More recently, Ms. Haley has seized on the bloodshed in Israel to flash her foreign policy credentials and criticize President Biden’s performance on global affairs.
The 51-year-old U.N. veteran said the organization’s response to the horrific Hamas attack on Israel shows the Human Rights Council to be a “farce.” She said it is time to “eliminate Hamas” and to bring Iran “to its knees.”
“Americans and the West need to wake up because we are too distracted and we can’t be so arrogant to think this cannot happen on our soil,” she said on Fox News. “We have to have the backs of our friends. We have to understand it is not that Israel needs America, it is America needs Israel because they are the first line of defense against Islamic terrorism.”
Ms. Haley also has a warning for Republicans: “We can’t chase Democratic chaos with Republican chaos.”
“We have to start looking forward,” she said. “We have to leave the negative, the baggage, and the headlines of the past and start realizing this is a new world we are in, and this is evil, and we have to have the moral clarity to know the difference between good and bad, between right and wrong, between good and evil.”
Since the first GOP debate in August, Ms. Haley has nearly doubled her polling average in Iowa, and more than tripled her support in New Hampshire. She also sits in second place in her home state of South Carolina.
New Hampshire has played a key role in past primary races and had a penchant for surprises.
Pat Buchanan defeated Bob Dole there in the 1996 primary race, renewing questions about the strength of the Dole campaign. George H.W. Bush’s victory there in 1988 helped right his ship after losing the Iowa caucuses, and it was a similar story for Sen. John McCain in 2000 when he went on to win the nomination.
Mr. Trump’s allies, however, say Ms. Haley and the rest of the field are dreaming if they think they can poke a hole in the impending sense Mr Trump cannot be stopped in New Hampshire or elsewhere.
“Donald Trump is going to win Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — in that order by record margins,” said Corey Lewandowski, a New Hampshire-based GOP strategist who served as the first campaign manager of Mr. Trump’s 2016 bid. “This primary race is over.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.