New Hampshire Q&A: End of Haley’s Comet?
Trump takes first two contests. Is it over? What to know.
Note: I love conversational Q&A formats, so I’m using that here to give the lowdown on today’s New Hampshire primary and what it means for the 2024 election.
Q: So, is Nikki Haley done with this loss in NH?
A: She says she’s not, but who really knows? I expect her to ride this out until at least Feb. 24 when South Carolina, where she was governor, will hold its primary – or perhaps until Super Tuesday.
Q: Does she still have a chance?
A: The experts say no. I’m not an expert, but I see a sliver of hope for Haley if there’s any “squishy-ness” within the Republican base.
Q: “Squishy-ness”?
A: Let me explain. First, let’s talk about polls.
They’re right most of the time – but not always. We will always remember 2016 when the polls said Clinton was a slam-dunk to beat Trump. The polls “lied” – but what that really means is that poll responders lied or were truly unsure about their choice. So Haley is probably thinking, “You’re telling me there’s a chance.”
Next, let’s talk about the base.
We hear, over and over, that the GOP base is fully behind Trump. Which may be true. Or not. This is where the “squishy” comes in.
Go back to autumn when Trump was the runaway choice over a gaggle of Republican candidates. It makes sense that those polled would favor a known quantity at that time. But we are in the infancy of a two-person race now that DeSantis ended his campaign.
I find it hard to believe there isn’t a segment of the GOP base that is only “tolerating” Trump as their choice. Now that they have an increasingly known quantity such as Haley as an option, this squishy element could very well shift allegiance to her.
Q: So, the narrative that “everybody loves Trump” within his party is a fallacy?
A: To say “everybody loves Trump” is a huge overstatement. He may have cast a sympathetic figure to some when he started getting indicted by the courts, but we are getting further and further away from that. It’s old news that he’s on trial. At some point, it’s not unreasonable to believe that some GOP voters will simply say, “I’d rather opt out from Trump and go with someone who has an equal or better chance of winning the general election.”
Possible, though not probable. We’ll see.