SPIRIT LAKE, Iowa — Retiree Reggie Alt handed a handwritten seven-page memo detailing her concepts for how one can beat former President Donald Trump to one in all former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley’s aides.
Then she grasped Haley’s fingers and supplied the GOP presidential candidate some Star Wars-themed recommendation:
“Think of Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are our only hope,” the 68-year-old Algona resident informed Haley.
Haley laughed and wrapped her arms across the former receptionist.
Haley wants the assist of caucusgoers like Alt, an unbiased voter who stated she has supported presidential candidates of each events over the previous half-century, if she hopes to slender former President Trump’s huge lead in state and nationwide polls forward of this month’s Iowa caucuses. A robust exhibiting within the Jan. 15 contest might higher place her to grab her celebration’s nomination from her onetime boss.
“Haley has a strong chance” if Trump’s marketing campaign collapses, Dianne Bystrom, director emerita of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University. “She’s a candidate who checks all the boxes — she’s a very good communicator, a very skilled debater, she has excellent television ads, and she comes across as strong and articulate.”
Haley is having fun with a boomlet of types. Her ballot numbers have risen in latest weeks, bigger crowds are attending her occasions, she has gained distinguished donors and endorsers, and a latest Wall Street Journal survey confirmed her beating President Joe Biden by 17 share factors in a hypothetical contest — the largest margin for any GOP candidate within the area. Increased scrutiny — together with of Haley’s failure to say slavery as a explanation for the Civil War throughout a city corridor in New Hampshire final week — has adopted.
Her prospects of really reaching the final election nonetheless look grim. Trump swamps Haley and the remainder of the GOP area in nationwide and early-state polls, together with South Carolina, the place she served as governor for six years. The prime merchandise in a latest marketing campaign missive lauding “Haley’s Week of Wins” was a Fox News headline that requested whether or not New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu’s endorsement of Haley would “make a dent in Trump’s massive lead in GOP presidential primary race?”
Aside from nicknaming Haley “birdbrain,” Trump and his allies largely ignored her till latest weeks. Last month, a brilliant PAC backing the previous president launched a tv advert in New Hampshire that distorts her gubernatorial document on a state gasoline tax. The advert reveals video of Haley saying she opposed such a tax after which saying she supported one, whereas omitting that she stated she would solely assist such a measure if the state’s earnings tax charges had been was lower by 2%.
As Haley’s prominence has grown, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as soon as seen as the highest Republican challenger to Trump, and his allies have attacked the previous ambassador as beholden to Wall Street, questioned her conservative bona fides and forged aspersions about her tenure as governor.
But impartial observers argue that if every thing breaks Haley’s method, she has a slender path to the GOP nomination.
“If she finishes strongly in Iowa, and by strongly, I would say second place ahead of DeSantis … it’s plausible she can come to New Hampshire and say, ‘Look, New Hampshire, it’s either me or Trump,’” stated Dante Scala, a political science professor on the University of New Hampshire.
The creator of “Stormy Weather: The New Hampshire Primary and Presidential Politics” stated Haley has an edge within the Live Free and Die state over the opposite Republicans working.
“She has found a niche in New Hampshire among moderate voters, independents, people who have serious doubts about Donald Trump and don’t want him to be the nominee again,” Scala stated, including that such voters are additionally drawn to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s candidacy however discover Haley extra likable.
A ballot of possible voters launched by Saint Anselm College final month discovered Haley rising within the state, successful the backing of 30% to Trump’s 44%. Haley doubled her assist because the final ballot, whereas the previous president held regular. Christie lagged at 12%, with the remainder of the GOP area additional behind.
Doug Gross, a Republican Des Moines lawyer who just lately endorsed Haley, stated he expects Trump to win Iowa. But if Haley has a robust exhibiting in second place, that will give her momentum going into New Hampshire, he stated.
“Then you have a shootout in her home state of South Carolina,” he stated. “That’s as good as it could get for Nikki Haley.”
Gross is amongst Haley’s backers who want she had spent extra time in Iowa, although he’s hopeful {that a} latest endorsement by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group with a big presence within the state, might give her an organizational increase.
Haley, whose debate performances and voter city halls are spiked with a mixture of Southern attraction and acerbic wit, makes an attempt to attach with Iowans by highlighting her personal small-town roots.
“I was born and raised in a small rural town in South Carolina: 2,500 people, two stop lights,” Haley stated just lately, standing in entrance of an unlimited inexperienced John Deere tractor and stacked bales of hay in a shed in Waukee, Iowa. “You couldn’t think about doing something wrong without somebody telling your mama.”
In the waning weeks earlier than the caucuses, Haley is urgent her electability towards Biden in addition to her overseas coverage credentials and conventional neocon views — notable bona fides at a time of Russia’s ongoing onslaught towards Ukraine, Hamas’ terrorist assault on Israel and rising considerations about China’s intentions in East Asia.
Such views cemented the assist of Michelle Garland, a 52-year-old faculty psychology professor, after she noticed Haley converse at a tony restaurant in Clear Lake.
“To use a word in Yiddish, she has chutzpah. She’s genuine. She’s authentic,” stated Garland, an unbiased voter. “She doesn’t say what people want to hear. She says what she feels. And if you don’t like that, well, you can go elsewhere.”
A matter-and-answer interval takes up the majority of the previous ambassador’s marketing campaign occasions. Haley spends extra time speaking to voters, taking selfies with supporters and signing marketing campaign mementos akin to her e book “With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace” than she does delivering her stump speech.
These are traits which have historically been key to successful the hearts and minds of Iowa voters.
“She could be your best girlfriend. Like, you know, we can open up a bottle of wine or have a coffee together and we would find just the human kind of association together,” stated Claudia Ewald, 65, after asking Haley to signal an image of them and her husband Dave on the Waukee gathering.
The image was taken at a 2021 fundraiser for Gov. Kim Reynolds, the primary time Ewald met Haley. She was immediately smitten, saying Haley was “a woman who was solid, who could be a consensus builder.”
“Her national security [background] was her primary strength,” Ewald stated, earlier than including that she made a degree of seeing different candidates together with DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy earlier than making a choice. “Nikki just kept coming up on top. She’s a very genuine person.”
Haley doesn’t overtly concentrate on her gender, regardless of it being an undercurrent within the first presidential election because the Supreme Court overturned federal safety of abortion rights.
But her remarks — whether or not about her position as a navy spouse and mother, firing again at her GOP rivals once they make gendered statements, or calling for “a badass woman” to be elected to the White House — seem like aimed on the suburban feminine voters who might swing subsequent yr’s election.
This message and angle has beforehand resonated with Iowan voters, famous David Kochel, a veteran GOP strategist who has suggested Reynolds, in addition to Iowa’s Sen. Joni Ernst and Rep. Ashley Hinson.
“Iowa has elected a number of candidates who sound a lot like Nikki Haley … strong conservative women,” Kochel stated, including that Haley’s message is “compelling.” “Now the question is — is there enough time?”
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