Playing It Safe Won’t Work for Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley saved her Republican presidential campaign in the party’s first debate with her aggressive and articulate performance. More than that, she took a risk by criticizing the Republican Party and, by implication, its congressional leadership for weakness and for losing a string of federal and state legislative races, as well as by whacking Donald Trump for his tiresome chaos.

But in the most recent GOP debate, Haley stopped taking chances, played defense, and fell into old, conventional campaign tactics — and that just won’t work in 2024.

It’s worth recalling that, going into the first Republican debate, Haley’s campaign was going nowhere. She was at nothing in the polls and seemed to be just playing out the string, certain to melt away with the others, leaving Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) as the sole substantive challenger to Trump.

But Haley saved her campaign with a strong performance. She attacked the Republican political establishment for losing, and she staked out a commonsense opinion on abortion — one with considerable political support in the party (if not among the loud extremists).

The costs of playing it safe should have been made clear by DeSantis. He played a cautious game in the first three debates, hoping to scoop up GOP support as other candidates faded away. Instead, the non-Trump support gravitated toward Haley. In the lead-up to the first debate, DeSantis was a clear second place with 14% against a mere 3% for Haley.

Candidates started dropping, but DeSantis did not pick up anything. In fact, he lost some ground. After the second debate, Haley took off, rising from just over 5% to nearly tie DeSantis, while the Florida governor skidded to 13%. In the early primary states, the changes are the starkest.

In New Hampshire, Haley went from trailing even Gov. Doug Burgum (R-N.D.) in August (3%) to a clear second at 18.5%, while DeSantis has dropped from 29% in the spring to only 8.5%, trailing former New Jersey Chris Christie. Iowa, where DeSantis has staked everything, is looking more dangerous, with Haley coming from nowhere to close within 4 points of second place.

Risk-Averse Won’t Work

In the last of the GOP debates, it was DeSantis who went on the attack and had his best debate performance, while Haley stayed defensive. Combined with his one-on-one debate in Fox News with Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) and a strong, aggressive performance at his CNN town hall, perhaps DeSantis will get some wind at his back.

But Haley must regain her own momentum and do it by returning to the anti-establishment theme that helped her break out in the first place and by adopting some of Trump’s tactics. The Republican electorate is more anti-establishment than ever — even against their own “establishment.”

Watching the party apparatus stumble and fumble its way through the last two elections has been infuriating for GOP voters. Just as bad, the fractious House GOP caucus has demonstrated no competency other than for self-destruction. As awful as the party’s follies were in choosing a new House Speaker, even worse is the House Republicans not addressing any of the top issues before voters. Mired in a hopeless impeachment case and completely reactive to the Biden administration, House Republicans are a clown show.

Despite the personal attacks by challenger Vivek Ramaswamy, Haley has her own anti-establishment credentials. She was a governor and never served in Congress. Against DeSantis and her noxious tormentor, Ramaswamy, Haley has a great card to play: Both men are Ivy League graduates — Ramaswamy from poisonous Harvard, DeSantis from Yale and Harvard Law — while Haley went to Clemson. The perfect zinger would be to say she would rather write-in Ronald Reagan than vote for anyone from the Ivy League. Let Ramaswamy try to attack his alma mater; Haley can just say that a skunk never changes his stripes.

Is Haley afraid of offending her new friends? If so, she is making a serious miscalculation. Money matters a lot less in presidential politics than it used to. Messaging is far more important, and Wall Street, Washington and Silicon Valley are toxic right now in the GOP.

Taking a Page from Trump

Haley, DeSantis and Ramaswamy are showing their inexperience by engaging in old-style attack politics and practiced sound bites. Parsing who sold what acreage to China and who sold out to who just bores the crowd. Trump knows this and boils his attacks down to simple phrases. He ignores the minutiae and plows ahead.

Haley’s stumble in the last debate was getting sucked into the minutiae of DeSantis’ and Ramaswamy’s opposition research. Trump would never have done that; he would have pivoted to what he wanted to say and hit big themes. Trump would have said Republicans should never trust anyone who went to left-wing, antisemitic, pro-Soros, corrupt, free-speech-cancelling Harvard or Yale. He would have asked Ramaswamy how much money he and his pharm-bro friends stole from poor Medicare recipients, etc.

And Trump would have called them “losers” — which they are, compared to Haley.

Haley’s “trump” card is her polling against Biden. While her RealClearPolitics average is just plus-5.8%, she has pulled some eye-popping numbers. Up 10 points in Harris/Messenger, 11 points in Fox News and 17 points in the Wall Street Journal polls. Comparable polling had DeSantis far, far behind. In recent state polling, Haley also outpolls DeSantis and Trump. As for Ramaswamy, the major polls don’t even test him against Biden.

Haley is making the mistake that front-runners always make: playing it safe. Along with the other hopefuls, she is showing her inexperience on the national stage, failing to pay attention to how skillful and successful Trump’s tactics are — and failing to steal them.

She scored a nice endorsement from Gov. Chris Sununu (R-N.H.), but the real battle is for the votes of angry GOP voters tired of losing. If she wants to pose a real risk to Trump, she will have to take more chances and risk offending the party grandees. Haley needs to understand that’s not really a risk: After all, it’s the Republicans in power who have put the party in the ditch.

Keith Naughton, Ph.D., is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm. Naughton is a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant. Follow him on Twitter @KNaughton711.