A threat ? Or support for Donald Trump?
By entering the Republican primary this week for the 2024 presidential election, former United States ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley officially became the first candidate to oppose the former president who , last November, announced his intentions to return to the White House in the next US election cycle.
But what looks like the start of a game could paradoxically very quickly turn into a contribution from Mme Haley to the populist’s campaign, helping secure his victory against opponents like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who may also announce his candidacy soon.
“Every Republican who enters the race is not running against Donald Trump, he is running against Ron DeSantis,” summarized a source close to the former president’s campaign team, quoted by the ABC network this week. “The best scenario for [Nikki] Haley is leaving the race as Donald Trump’s runner-up, but it will be at the expense” of DeSantis, the Republican currently best positioned to replace the ousted ex-president as party leader.
On Tuesday, Nikki Haley put an end to speculation about her candidacy by embarking on the Republican primary, even if a year ago, the former governor of South Carolina had assured not to want to hinder the candidacy of Donald Trump. In a video message formalizing the launch of her campaign, 20 months before the next presidential election, the 51-year-old woman of Indian origins called for “a new generation of leaders” to wear the Republican colors in 2024, after the party’s defeat in 2020 and then the mixed results in the 2022 midterm elections, when the populist is still firmly in the saddle at the top of the Grand Old Party (GOP).
“I just don’t see the need for Nikki Haley [dans la course]commented John Stipanovich, a Republican political organizer from Florida and a strong critical voice against Donald Trump, quoted on Wednesday by the political daily The Hill. “If you want Trump, you have Trump. If you want Trump without the huge amount of baggage [qui vient avec], you have DeSantis. And if you want what I would call the mainline, traditional Republican, there are better candidates for that than Nikki Haley, who I believe is tainted by her years of service under President Donald Trump. »
On Tuesday, the ex-president wished “good luck” to the candidate while avoiding denigrating her, something he does not hesitate to do towards all of his opponents.
Few voting intentions
According to the latest Morning Consult probe, the results of which were released on Tuesday, the former reality TV star is still leading the race, with 47% of voting intentions in this primary, against 31% for Ron DeSantis, 7% for ex-vice president Mike Pence and… 3% for Nikki Haley, in fourth place.
Last month, however, a measure of public opinion by the Republican-centric polling firm North Star Opinion Research (NSOR) found that the majority of voters who might take part in the Republican primaries and caucuses heading into the president of 2024 are ready to break away from Donald Trump, judging that he is no longer able to win an election or that he is too obsessed with the past rather than the future of the party and the country.
This trend is illustrated in the case of a hypothetical 10-candidate race where the governor of Florida would come out on top at 39%, followed by Trump (28%), Pence (9%) and Haley (4%), according to NSOR.
A scenario also confirmed by a survey conducted by YouGov at the beginning of the month, but which indicates for its part that Nikki Haley could come to disturb things by participating in the division of the vote which could work in favor of the ex-president, and this , in the event of a final three-way race between Trump, DeSantis and the former American diplomat. By attracting 11% of the vote, it would indeed reduce the share granted to the governor of Florida to 35%, leaving Trump ahead with 38% of the voting intentions.
Recall that in 2016, Trump entered the primaries against 17 candidates and won the Republican nomination without obtaining a majority of votes, 55% of Republican voters having voted for a candidate other than him.
” I do not think that [Nikki Haley] enters the race to attack Donald Trump, said former chief strategist of Mitt Romney during his campaign to gain access to the White House in 2012, Stuart Stevens, quoted by Business Insider. “Why is Nikki Haley showing up? Not because she thinks she’s really going to be elected president of the United States, but because she has nothing else to do. She is running above all to be vice-president ”, alongside Donald Trump, in the event of the victory of the populist and instigator of the January 6 insurrection against the dome of American democracy, during the primaries.
Tuesday, M.me Haley said “not afraid of bullies”, without however attributing this qualifier directly to Donald Trump. Since leaving the UN in 2018, the ex-diplomat has distanced himself from the ex-president, sometimes criticizing him, but always subsequently toning down his remarks. In October 2021, in an interview at wall street journal, she supported the spurious accusations of electoral fraud shouted by the ex-president since his defeat, without however believing “that the numbers were so important to tip the vote in the wrong direction”, she said . Then she added, nearly nine months after the attack on the Capitol, “We need [Donald Trump] in the Republican Party. I don’t want us to go back to pre-Trump times. »