By Mayank Chhaya-
A little over ten months after Nikki Haley announced her candidacy for president on February 15, this year, she appears set to wrap up 2023 on an unexpectedly strong note. So much so that her steady rise in the polls over three rivals is reportedly prompting former President and the clear frontrunner Donald Trump to consider offering her the vice-presidential slot to her on his ticket.
This is notwithstanding that Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump and a former South Carolina Governo, continues to trail some 15 points behind him in the New Hampshire primary. Elsewhere she is trailing by even bigger margins.
The very fact that Trump might be considering her as his vice president indicates he and his campaign sense a potential threat, especially in the light of his relentless legal troubles over four criminal cases. They range from attempting to overturn the 2020 election, election interference in Georgia, paying off a porn star with hush money and illegally possessing classified documents after demitting office. The four cases incorporate in total 91 felony counts. For any other politician even one of those four cases would have proved politically fatal but in his case, they seem to have only buttressed his standing with his conservative base.
Although no formal offer has been made by Trump to Haley, there are enough feelers in the air, according to numerous media reports. At the same time though, the response to the Trump-Haley ticket has been lackluster at best and downright negative at worst. It does not seem likely at this stage of the campaigning that Haley would even choose to respond in any manner to the talk of her as Trump’s second-in-command.
So far, she has been remarkably focused on highlighting her strengths without significantly denigrating Trump unlike someone like former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who has been no-holds-barred in denouncing and rejecting Trump altogether. Of the other two Republican contenders, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and brash entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the former has been generally coy about rejecting Trump, the latter has been openly supportive of the former president. Haley’s approach has been to eat her cake and have it too as far as Trump’s unshakably loyal base is concerned.
For now, she seems content with her sort of middle-of-the-road approach by the Republican standards to position herself as the most electable of all contenders against President Joe Biden. Her policy positions have been carefully calibrated to look beyond the Republican primaries since the general election electorate is a very different constituency and is unlikely to go for what the Republican primary voters might.
Despite his robust lead, Trump has serious vulnerabilities arising out of his profound legal troubles. Even if one of the four cases ends in a conviction, there are serious prospects of even some of his staunchest supporters leaving him. It is not altogether inconceivable that he could be convicted in one of the four cases and then the image of having a convicted felon as their nominee is a terrible look for the Republican Party. It is against that backdrop that Haley appears to be steadily strengthening her numbers. Winning the endorsement of the popular New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu barely a month before the primary there, is a major shot in the arm for her.
Today Haley has returned to New Hampshire for a three-day visit through the state as she seeks to bolster her prospects. She released a new advertisement where Sununu says, “She’s a leader who builds people up. She’s a live-free-or-die Republican who understands fiscal responsibility and individual liberty. She’s a new generation of conservative leadership who can help leave behind the chaos and the drama of the past.”
A cursory reading of her campaigning style since February this year reveals an approach that is generally on an even keel, occasionally sharpening her oratory against her rivals, Ramaswamy in particular who has frequently attacked her. “Anti-Trumpers don’t think I hate him enough. Pro-Trumpers don’t think I love him enough,” she recently told the media in New Hampshire perfectly underscoring her studiedly circumspect style.
