Nikki Hakey is still running for president,despite some people asking why she should even bother. She's still trudging across Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina despite Donald Trump's large leads in all of those early primary and caucus states.
Haley has many drawbacks. She's thoughtful rather than instinctive. She's looking to build bridges not blow them up. But the biggest drawback she has is that the Republican Party has changed in the last four years and she hasn't.
To emerge as a Trump alternative, her biggest roadblock is that “what a conservative is has been redefined by Trump himself,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist and a former aide to Mitt Romney. Conservatism is not a set of principles, immutable and eternal. (Neither is liberalism, but that's another article.) At the moment, Donald Trump defines what "conservatism" means, and that might vary from day to day.
Haley “has always been a pragmatic conservative," said Williams.“She is comfortable in her own skin, and she is going to win or lose based on her own values and beliefs."
Pragmatists don't win GOP nominations for president. At least, they haven't since 2012. So Haley is really bucking the trends by opposing Trump.
How she's campaigning against Trump is the most delicate of balancing acts. In effect, she has to be all things to all Republicans, including the MAGGiest of MAGA Republicans. She also has to appeal to pro-Trump voters who may have become tired of his antics and are looking for an alternative, as well as to the out-and-out Trump haters.
It's a very large universe that she's playing in. And so far, she's only had moderate success. She has halved Trump's lead in New Hampshire and moved into second place in her home state of South Carolina. But she's still 20 points down in Iowa with less than two months until the caucuses.
The abortion issue highlights her difficulty in following this strategy.
Ms. Haley’s attempt to thread the needle on abortion is already being tested, as she has faced skepticism from Iowa’s evangelical community, a critical voting bloc. Addressing a conservative Christian audience in Iowa, Ms. Haley said she would have signed a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy as governor.
Democrats seized on Ms. Haley’s remarks as proof that, despite her tone, she is no moderate on the issue. The influential evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, who previously indicated that clear-cut abortion opposition would be the driving factor for his support, went on to endorse Mr. DeSantis. But just days earlier, Ms. Haley had received a seemingly impromptu endorsement from Marlys Popma, the former head of the state Republican Party and one of Iowa’s most prominent anti-abortion activists — who indicated she was comfortable with Ms. Haley’s stance.
No one is going to "finesse" the abortion issue. For many Republicans, it's an either/or proposition. Either you support the position that there should be no abortions at any time for any reason or you're not pro-life. Haley made the mistake of trying to, Solomon-like, split the baby in two. It didn't satisfy either side and, like many before her, she was burned on the abortion issue.
Where Haley has made genuine progress is in attracting some of the biggest mega-donors in the GOP to her cause.
Business Insider:
But Haley has impressed an array of business leaders — including JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon — with her policy knowledge, according to The Times.
Dimon, who this past summer told The Economist he'd exercise some caution with President Joe Biden's "Bidenomics" after reacting coolly to the social policy aspect of the administration's economic agenda, recently encouraged the former South Carolina governor to continue discussing ways to tackle complex issues, per The Times. In that same interview, Dimon also said he'd "worry" about Trump potentially retaking the White House in 2024.
Kenneth G. Langone, the billionaire cofounder of Home Depot, told The Times that he remained undecided in the GOP race but was "very impressed" by Haley.
"I think she's a viable candidate. I would certainly like her over Trump," Langone, who's donated to Haley's campaign, told the newspaper.
Most mega-donors who haven't yet gotten involved in a presidential campaign have either resigned themselves to a Trump nomination or think that Haley still has a shot. But she's running out of chances to electrify the donor class and give them a reason to back her.
Time is very short and the odds are very long. But Haley is not ready to give up.
Yet.
