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Fans of Haley, the former U.N. ambassador, take comfort from solid debate performances such as the one she just delivered in Alabama. They say they’re supporting her because of her realism about the need to restrain the growth of spending on Medicare and Social Security, and her steady support for aid to Ukraine. They like her rhetorical emphasis on unifying Americans, backed up by her lack of interest in engaging in culture-war provocations.
On all of these questions, she differs from DeSantis and Trump. Her campaign argues, with some backing in the polls, that she would have a better shot of winning in November 2024 than either of them. And she has some momentum in the states that vote early in the primary.
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DeSantis’s supporters cite his record as the sitting governor of Florida. On many conservative issues, from school choice to the right to life, he has accomplished more than Haley did as governor of South Carolina. These voters think conservative politicians should fight some cultural battles, even when their adversaries are major corporations. They see wisdom in his being more reluctant than Haley to get involved in overseas conflicts. They prefer his stance on legal immigration to hers: He wants lower levels so as to foster assimilation; she wants a policy driven by employer needs.
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Underlying the choice between Haley and DeSantis is a difference of opinion over Trump. Both camps see the former president’s character flaws. But Haley Republicans tend to think that the pre-Trump party was on the right track on economics and foreign policy. DeSantis Republicans are more likely to believe that something like Trump’s populist turn was necessary for the party to adapt to a country that has changed a lot since Ronald Reagan was president.
That split explains some of the peculiar dynamics of this race. Voters who wholly reject Trumpian populism as well as Trump’s personality are, naturally, not considering voting for him at all, and they are drawn to Haley. So she is not, at least currently, competing with Trump for the same voters. The most anti-Trump Republicans are flocking to Haley even as DeSantis criticizes Trump more than she does.
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DeSantis has made his share of mistakes in this race. I think he should do more to explain that Trump lost the 2020 election and then lied about it. Haley’s mini-surge is giving credence to a more fundamental critique of DeSantis’s strategy: That DeSantis has been running as “Trump lite,” and that voters who find a Trumpy candidate appealing can and will just pick Trump over an imitator.
But that’s another way of saying that there’s no point in trying to court voters who are on the fence about the former president. If that is true, it means that there’s also no point in attempting to build a Republican future that learns from the mistakes of the pre-Trump party without binding itself fully to Trump. If that’s right — and it might be, at least for the time frame of the 2024 nomination contest — then no Republican opponent of Trump ever had a chance of beating him.
But the polling indicates that not all of Trump’s supporters are wedded to him, which suggests there’s a narrow path to defeating him. His character and conduct render him dangerous in office — as he showed by trying to subvert the Constitution after he lost last time — so it’s a matter of some import that Republicans move on from him. The differences between Haley and DeSantis are in comparison small. Either would be a nominee that the vast majority of conservatives would and should be comfortable supporting.
That brings us, or should bring us, to a question of political judgment. DeSantis is actively courting voters who are ambivalent about Trump, while Haley is not. He is therefore the greater potential threat to Trump in a one-on-one contest.
But Haley could keep him from making it to one.
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Republicans who don’t want Donald Trump as their presidential nominee and aren’t resigned to his winning — already a minority in the party — are split between Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. Each of those two candidates has a strong enough case that the division will be hard to resolve, which lowers the chances of a forceful primary challenge to Trump.
Fans of Haley, the former U.N. ambassador, take comfort from solid debate performances such as the one she just delivered in Alabama. They say they’re supporting her because of her realism about the need to restrain the growth of spending on Medicare and Social Security, and her steady support for aid to Ukraine. They like her rhetorical emphasis on unifying Americans, backed up by her lack of interest in engaging in culture-war provocations.
On all of these questions, she differs from DeSantis and Trump. Her campaign argues, with some backing in the polls, that she would have a better shot of winning in November 2024 than either of them. And she has some momentum in the states that vote early in the primary.
DeSantis’s supporters cite his record as the sitting governor of Florida. On many conservative issues, from school choice to the right to life, he has accomplished more than Haley did as governor of South Carolina. These voters think conservative politicians should fight some cultural battles, even when their adversaries are major corporations. They see wisdom in his being more reluctant than Haley to get involved in overseas conflicts. They prefer his stance on legal immigration to hers: He wants lower levels so as to foster assimilation; she wants a policy driven by employer needs.
Underlying the choice between Haley and DeSantis is a difference of opinion over Trump. Both camps see the former president’s character flaws. But Haley Republicans tend to think that the pre-Trump party was on the right track on economics and foreign policy. DeSantis Republicans are more likely to believe that something like Trump’s populist turn was necessary for the party to adapt to a country that has changed a lot since Ronald Reagan was president.
That split explains some of the peculiar dynamics of this race. Voters who wholly reject Trumpian populism as well as Trump’s personality are, naturally, not considering voting for him at all, and they are drawn to Haley. So she is not, at least currently, competing with Trump for the same voters. The most anti-Trump Republicans are flocking to Haley even as DeSantis criticizes Trump more than she does.
DeSantis has made his share of mistakes in this race. I think he should do more to explain that Trump lost the 2020 election and then lied about it. Haley’s mini-surge is giving credence to a more fundamental critique of DeSantis’s strategy: That DeSantis has been running as “Trump lite,” and that voters who find a Trumpy candidate appealing can and will just pick Trump over an imitator.
But that’s another way of saying that there’s no point in trying to court voters who are on the fence about the former president. If that is true, it means that there’s also no point in attempting to build a Republican future that learns from the mistakes of the pre-Trump party without binding itself fully to Trump. If that’s right — and it might be, at least for the time frame of the 2024 nomination contest — then no Republican opponent of Trump ever had a chance of beating him.
But the polling indicates that not all of Trump’s supporters are wedded to him, which suggests there’s a narrow path to defeating him. His character and conduct render him dangerous in office — as he showed by trying to subvert the Constitution after he lost last time — so it’s a matter of some import that Republicans move on from him. The differences between Haley and DeSantis are in comparison small. Either would be a nominee that the vast majority of conservatives would and should be comfortable supporting.
That brings us, or should bring us, to a question of political judgment. DeSantis is actively courting voters who are ambivalent about Trump, while Haley is not. He is therefore the greater potential threat to Trump in a one-on-one contest.
But Haley could keep him from making it to one.
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