America's Talking - Haley Surpasses DeSantis for 2nd in New GOP Primary Poll

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

Former South Carolina Gov. and ambassador Nikki Haley has surpassed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis among Republican voters, according to a new poll. The Center Square Voter’s Voice poll shows former President Donald Trump with a wide lead and Haley in second, surpassing DeSantis by one percentage point. Get your Audible Membership today! (As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualified purchases) Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulah, Vice President of News and content at the Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is the Center Squares's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey, Casey, the latest Center Square's Voters' Voters Pollute this week, just in time for the Iowa caucuses. Iowa voters will be the first to weigh in during the presidential primary season. When all indications are, we're going to see a rematch of 2020. When then Challenger and now President Joe Biden defeated then President, now Challenger Donald Trump,

of course with Trump's legal issues and Biden facing an impeachment inquiry and also questions about his age and mental capacity, anything can happen between now and November. And who finishes second in the GOP primary actually could matter. So let's start with the latest national poll, which again shows Trump with a huge lead over his main challengers, that being Florida Governor Ronda Sanis, former South Carolina governor and a president. Ambassador Nikki Haley and businessman Vivek Ramoswamy. Earlier this week, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie suspended his presidential campaign. Casey, tell us what the polling shows nationally about the race.

Yeah, it's really interesting because we did see a real development. I mean, as these candidates have been campaigning, you talked about the snowstorm in Chicago. That snowstorm has also hit Iowa. But things slowed down a little bit, but it's still going to be a fever pitch. And what we've seen in our Center Square voters' voice poll is that Nikki Haley has actually surpassed Ron DeSantis. Now, most polling up to this point has shown DeSantis with a lead over Haley beyond the margin of error.

Now, he has been far away from Trump. Of course, DeSantis had a real, a much smaller gap between himself and Trump before the FBI rated Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, which we've talked about at length on this podcast. in this radio program about how that moment where the FBI raid was the turning point. You see DeSantis's poll steadily drop, and they've really continued to drop. And as you said, Trump has more support than all his challengers combined. But this is a really big poll for the Haley campaign, especially because Nikki Haley's campaign has a strong presence in New Hampshire. And I think she has a really good chance of performing really well in New Hampshire.

So if Haley is able to maintain the lead that our poll found, now it is just one poll, and the numbers change, you know, all the time. It's politics, it's polling. It is an extensive poll, and then it's a survey of more than 2,500 likely voters, which is more a bigger sample size than most polls that discussed out there, and that more than 2,500 sample size includes about the same number of registered Republicans, about the same number of registered Democrats, and about 300 true independence. So it is about as accurate as a poll is out there. But as you said, you it's a poll. Things can change between now and November, of course. You're right. I mean, it's an above-average quality poll, I would say, for sure. And if those numbers hold that Haley has,

then she could see herself beating DeSantis in Iowa and New Hampshire, which I think could just really be the nail in the coffin for the DeSantis campaign as promising and as strong and well, as well-funded as it may have started out. If he loses both Iowa and New Hampshire to Haley, I think, it is going to let the air out of his balloon, and it's going to be almost impossible for him to recover. So this really is pretty big news. Haley beating DeSantis by, it's only by one point. But I think even a tie for Haley and DeSantis is not going to look good for him. DeSantis is, in some sense, put all his eggs in this Iowa basket, hoping to show that, hey, he is a really strong candidate, hoping to put other candidates out of the race and show that he can challenge Trump. But as the months have gone on, that seemed less and less probable. And now this poll says that maybe he won't even win Iowa at all.

Why don't we look specifically at the numbers? Because, you know, we're talking a lot about Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley here. But let's face it, the juggernaut is Donald Trump, the former president. In our survey of likely Republican voters, 61% of respondents chose Trump. That's well more than the entire rest of the field combined. Nikki Haley pulled ahead of DeSantis for second. place by one percentage point, which is within the polls two percentage point margin of error. Nikki Haley received 13% support.

DeSantis, 12% support. Ramoswami, 7% report. So even if, let's say, Nikki Haley does beat DeSanis in both Iowa and New Hampshire, New Hampshire closely follows Iowa to be the second state to weigh in in the primary later this month, and DeSantis drops out. Even if Haley were to get all of DeSantis's voters to support her, which is not likely, let's just face it, she would still be significantly behind Trump. This is Trump's race to lose. But as we've talked about before, why don't you just briefly explain why second place actually could matter this year.

Yeah, and one thing I do want to point out is after our poll was conducted, Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor, actually dropped out. And he had, I think, 2% support in this poll. And so if his 2%, it's kind of widely believed that his 2% would actually go to Nikki Haley. Not because he was really the anti-Trump candidate, so it's not going to go for Trump. And DeSantis is so closely aligned with Trump that it could go to Haley, although she wasn't very explicitly anti-Trump, though, maybe more critical than DeSantis. So that's just worth noting there. But what is, you know, what is second place here if Nikki Haley is able to take it? Why is it important?

Well, our listeners probably know this, but Trump faces 90s. criminal charges across several states related to his handling of classified documents, his role in January 6, among other things. And so setting aside the civil lawsuits, there are very real federal criminal charges against the president. And if you look at his calendar for this election year, Dan, it's really the last thing a presidential candidate wants in their calendar, which is a string of court dates. Now, on the political side, we do notice that whenever Trump goes to court, he gets a rush of fundraising and it can help his poll numbers actually. But eventually those court dates might lead to a conviction.

And when that day comes, it's really going to test the medal of Republican or Trump's support rather and say, is Trump, are we really going to support a candidate who may be headed to prison or in prison? Is that going to happen before election day? Or is Trump's conviction just further backing of what he's been claiming all along that they're going after you and I'm the one standing in their way. And so they're only targeting me because they can't get to you and I am your savior and I am your martyr, which has really been Trump's message from the beginning. So it's going to be really interesting to see if

a conviction happens, if it happens before election day. And if it does, does it weaken or just double down the support that Trump has been able to garner. But if it does weaken it and it gives people second thoughts, then they might be looking for who was that strong candidate who came in second, who is on an upward trajectory. I think Haley could check those boxes. I mean, she's very different from Trump in a lot of ways, but she's widely viewed as more electable than President Biden. And so if we come around to a summer surprise where Trump's in trouble and Republicans need someone who can win suburban women and beat Joe Biden, Haley might be at the right place at the right time, even given her, you know, less than impressive poll numbers right now.

I'm not ready to dismiss DeSantis outright just yet. Let's see what Iowa voters have to say. Casey, you will be covering the Iowa caucuses on Monday night. Listeners will be able to follow Casey's coverage. And all of the Center Square is great coverage on primary season. The Center Square voters voice poll. We have plenty of stories to come at thecentersquare.com on our new polling. But we are out of time. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McKeel. Thank you for listening. Please subscribe. Audible is a great way to gain access to an ever-growing selection of audiobooks. They've got what everyone's listening to. Bestsellers, new releases, that story you've been waiting for.

Follow the link in our show description to get 30 days of Audible free.