The Dispatch Podcast - Dispatch Live Unlocked: Nikki's Night in New Hampshire

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Nikki didn’t pull an upset Tuesday night but what’s next for her campaign? Mike Warren joins Declan Garvey and Steve Hayes from Haley HQ to discuss her remarks through primary night. John McCormack reports from South Carolina on what voters are saying in the former governor’s home state while Andrew Egger gives an update from a Biden/Harris campaign event. David Drucker joins us from Trump HQ with the expected celebratory fanfare from that event, and Chris Stirewalt joins in the end to give his analysis on how Nikki can stay in the race as the GOP pick.  Click here to watch the livestream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, lease a 2026 XE90 plug-in hybrid from $599 bi-weekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Conditions apply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com.

Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with stellus lenses for myopia control. Learn more at SLOR.com. And ask your family eye care professional for SLOR Stellist lenses at your child's next visit. Good evening and welcome to Dispatch Live.

It's primary night in America, potentially the last meaningful one of the cycle, but maybe not. We'll see. We've got Mike Warren on the ground in New Hampshire. We've got John McCormick on the ground in South Carolina and Steve Hayes on the ground in New York. I'm guessing. New York City. I think it's new York City. And I am here in D.C.

It's, haven't been on Dispatch Live in a while, missed you guys. Mostly the viewers. I talk to the three people on this call pretty much every day. But we've got some early results out of New Hampshire. I've got the Decision Desk HQ pulled up on this other screen over here. They have already called it for Trump over Haley. the networks, the more professional cautious networks have not yet, but shows early with about 20% of the vote in that Donald Trump is leading Nikki Haley in the Republican primary by about

12 percentage points. Mike, is that what you expected? Is that what the Haley campaign expected coming into tonight? It's about what I expected. The final number could be anything from the high single digits to closer to 15% in terms of 15 percentage point difference. I would say the Haley campaign has really been ramping down expectations, certainly from winning the New Hampshire primary, which was something, Chris Sununu, the governor here,

who's been supporting Haley and going around to almost, every campaign stop, had said at one point just a couple of weeks ago, they got to the point right here at the end of the campaign, say she wants to do better than she did in Iowa. 19% is about what she got in Iowa, and so she's going to beat that. She's going to be somewhere probably in the 40s, and so I guess she has, she's going to beat her changed expectations and sort of that's where the campaign was taking us. Trump, of course, they were expecting to win. They have a win likely here, so maybe not that big of a surprise result, but maybe closer

than people thought it's certainly not a blowout entirely. Steve, this expectations game that campaigns try to play, the media falls into the trap a lot of the time with these races, as Mike was saying, the Haley campaign, she herself, Chris Sununu, her top surrogate in the state, have spent the past week blanketing the state with the message that she doesn't need to win outright in New Hampshire. to have this be a successful night for the campaign. They're in it for the long haul. Their campaign manager put out a long memo today, basically saying this is only the beginning

where there's other open primaries like New Hampshire where we can compete going forward. It doesn't mean that we need to win tonight. That is a pretty stark departure from where they were two months ago, where they were predicting a New Hampshire victory. Does it matter that she overperformed expectations? Is that going to help the momentum leading out of tonight, even if it's not an outright victory? I think it's a hard case for them to make that a loss is a win here, right? I mean, in part because of the expectations that they set, as Mike pointed out, I mean, this was coming from their campaign, from their top surrogates in the state suggesting that a win was coming.

And, you know, you can understand why they made that argument at the time. I think they wanted to pressure Ronda Santis to get out, give him a sense and his supporters sense that he had no hope for a long time, remember they were pushing to get Chris Christie out, sort of clear the field so that it would be a one-on-one race between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump. So there were probably strategic reasons for them to have been as bold and aggressive as they were with these predictions. The problem is, if you make those predictions for days on end, and then you suddenly

start saying, look, a strong second is pretty good. We can stay for many contests. Reporters pick up on that. And, you know, while you're right to be skeptical, even a little cynical about the expectations game, and the role that reporters play in it, because reporters help set expectations, and then they claim candidates didn't do as well because candidates didn't live up to the expectations that the reporters themselves said. So some of this is gamesmanship. I think the bottom line is it's hard to imagine an electorate that's more friendly to a Nikki Haley-type candidate in today's modern Republican Party than we're seeing

in New Hampshire. That was true before we got these entrance polls that some of the networks have been using. But it's especially true when you look at the shape of the electorate that we appear to be seeing In New Hampshire today, you have some exit poll results about whether Donald Trump, but whether the electorate would be happy with Donald Trump or satisfied with Donald Trump as the nominee, 56%. That's a low number in a Republican primary, even in a Republican primary with independence. You look at the number of self-identified MAGA, I think, was 32%. That's a low number. I'm not sure there will be another state in which that number is as low as 32%. So you had two

thirds of the electorate saying they were not, did not consider themselves MAGA. 18% only self-identified evangelicals, a split between very conservative, somewhat conservative, and moderate voters. All of these things, a pretty even split in education level attainment. All of these things suggest that this is a very good electorate for Nikki Haley, probably better than one she'll see elsewhere. I think they're going to make the case that it's now a two-man, two-person race. Let's go to South Carolina, go to these Super Tuesday states, let voters who are not happy about having to choose Trump have an alternative. I think it's a hard case to make. So while you were talking, Steve, we did get the official calls. So AP, CNN, both projected Trump officially wins. They also projected Joe Biden wins on the

Democratic side. Not a lot of drama there. The president had to, and his campaign had to mount a right-in campaign because of a lot of finagling to put South Carolina first on the Democratic side. All that to say, Steve, you said that there's probably not a better state in the country for Nikki Haley than New Hampshire? John, you are in South Carolina where Nikki Haley was governor for two terms. Why is that not a better state for Nikki Haley? Well, yeah, you know, Haley's team will point out that South Carolina, anyone who hasn't voted in the Democratic primary can vote here as well.

So there's a similar, it's similarly open. They'll also say, you look ahead of Super Tuesday, 11 of the 16 states have that same dynamic. But if you go back, look at 2016 of the exit polls. I went back and pulled the numbers today. 76% of South Carolina voters were Republicans. 22% were independent. That's just totally different than the electorate that showed up today in New Hampshire, much more independent.

I know those were early exit polls, so they're not waited yet. But, I mean, some of them were saying, right, a majority were unaffiliated. Steve, Mike, is that right? That a majority were unaffiliated today. And then also it was that here's another stat. 81% were either somewhat or very conservative, while only 17% were moderate or liberal, compare that to 40% today. I think it was 31%.

Again, these were early exits, so don't hold me to the precise numbers, but 9% were liberal and 31% were moderate. There's just numbers you're not going to see and say it's going forward. So, you know, it's really hard to see. I haven't had this case made to me by anyone in the Haley camp, but if you're trying to really game it out, you're thinking forward. What is the strategic case for going forward? I mean, I don't know, do they hope to rack up maybe 40% of delegation?

60 to 40 in the delegate race, you never know what will happen. Maybe something will happen? I don't know. No one's made that case to me, but again, when you just look at these numbers, you're trying to see, is there really a path to a majority absence of some, you know, just unforeseen events, a very unusual event. It's very hard to get there. But again, her campaign, again, they say they're sticking in it.

They're very pushing back very hard against the media, saying you're trying to end this. The voters have barely gotten started. We had 100,000 in Iowa, a couple hundred thousand in Hampshire. There are going to be 500, 800,000 people who are going to vote in South Carolina in a month, and a month is the longest time in politics. Yes and no. So, I mean, but Donald Trump's been around for, you know, nine years. So it's just, it's very hard.

They say, you know, we haven't put any money on the airwaves yet. But again, you know, $150 million for Ron DeSantis couldn't change things for his trajectory. So, you know, the last poll that was out was early in South Carolina was early January. And Trump was, that was Emerson. Trump was at 54, Haley was around 25, DeSantis in the teens, then, like, Christy and Vivek, down in the single digits. So, yeah, I mean, the campaign says they're going to stick it out for another month. You know, they really want to debate. I think Trump has no incentive to do that unless, you know, something dramatically changes in the polls.

So that's where things look right now. That leads us well into a question we just got from the chat. This is Jim Pack Jr., asking, you know, If Haley comes in a close second tonight and then wins a couple states on Super Tuesday, is there any way that she becomes the next in line at the convention if something happens to Trump? Mike, I know this is something that you and Drucker are working on a little bit in New Hampshire on the ground, kind of what next steps would be for the Haley campaign. And for listeners, they turned the TVs on at Nikki Haley campaign.

That's what you're hearing. But, Mike, is there a path for a campaign that doesn't necessarily involve winning a majority? I like the music that's accompanying my talking here. It's a party here. So why not party on Dispatch Live? I think that that is a possibility that we're still working on reporting this. But I think if you take what we've heard from, say, the Haley Super Pack, what we think is going on behind the scenes there is a look the bottom line is the rules for these

upcoming primaries are that you get delegates even if you don't win they're proportionally delegated to how based on how many what percentage of the vote you get so for instance haley got eight delegates in iowa even though she came in third she will get delegates in new hampshire tonight, even though Donald Trump is projected to win. The sort of winner-take-all primaries don't kick in until after Super Tuesday. So if you think that there is a, if you want to be in a position, let's just say this, in a hypothetical, let's say Trump, I don't know, gets convicted of a crime or, you know, God forbid something happens to his health and he's unable to serve as the party's nominee.

At the very least, she will go to the convention with delegates if she continues to compete in these races. That changes after Super Tuesday, which is March 5th. And after that, most of the races after that are winner take all. So there's an argument to stay in. I don't know if that's exactly what Haley is thinking. Of course, all of this, all that matters here as well is, will she have the money to do that? And, you know, we're hearing that she's raised a lot of money since Ron DeSantis got out of the race, something like $1.5 million.

Her super PAC is raising some money since then. If she can spin this kind of far second place finish in New Hampshire into some more kind of, you know, donations from Republicans who are hopeful to have somebody other than. Trump, maybe she can go the distance. I tend to agree that after Super Tuesday, it's kind of hard to keep going. But again, she'll at least have some delegates. Steve, there's already obviously a ton of institutional pressure on Haley on her campaign. To end this, we're seeing it on Fox News.

Throughout the day today, she was on there. And they're basically asking, why are you still doing this? This is Trump's wrap it up. There's been a huge wave of endorsements the past couple weeks from Republicans who, let's say, did not, we're privately hoping that Trump would not be the nominee but weren't expressing so publicly and have since expressed publicly that they are so glad that he's the nominee and they're ready to support him. We just got another from John Cornyn 10 minutes ago. He came out and endorsed Trump. He'd been a holdout. Is that going to have any effect on Haley campaign's decision?

And how quickly do you think the GOP will be able to coalesce around this? Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. I mean, and I know, as you said, Mike and David are pursuing this. I mean, the question will be, after losing tonight, why would Nikki Haley stay? Like, that is the sort of fundamental question. Could it be that she wants to accumulate delegates? As Mike said, there's not a ton of reason to do that as you get later in the race. Does she want to simply keep her spot in case Donald Trump is convicted,

in case the party decides that he shouldn't be the nominee if he's convicted? I just don't think there are many indications that those things are likely to become reality at this point, which I think makes it harder, even if she's saying today and believing today. I think, you know, when they're telling people that they intend to stick through Super Tuesday, I think they believe it. I think that's the plan going in today. The question is whether, sort of like Ron DeSantis after Iowa, the reality sets in. And, you know, will it be harder for her to raise these dollars to continue to campaign and take on Trump? You're seeing, as you point out, Declan, these kinds of capitulations from people who have been, you know, for a long time.

have been privately critical of Donald Trump and have been critical, privately critical of Donald Trump until very, very recently, too. You know, some of these people have been critical of Donald Trump publicly in some cases. So you're seeing this shift to Republicans have just decided. Elected Republicans have just decided, now's the time. We're going to unite. We don't like Joe Biden. Our voters don't like Joe Biden.

Biden, they believe, I mean, I think there are, you know, it's probably not worth getting two in the weeds, but I think each of these people that we've seen do this has done this for different reasons. I think Marco Rubio is an ambitious young guy. He's certainly saddled up to Donald Trump consistently over the past few years. Maybe he wants to be a cabinet secretary. John Cornyn is one of the three people often mentioned as a potential successor to Mitch McConnell in the Senate. Endorsing Trump early probably gives him a bump over somebody like John Thune who has not yet endorsed Trump.

If Trump is going to weigh into that race, which if he's president, he certainly would. John Barrasso endorsed who had been privately critical of Donald Trump for a long time, endorsed Donald Trump even earlier because I think he also would like to be the Senate majority leader. You know, I think there's a lot of that going on behind the scenes and makes it hard to sometimes understand the motives. Also, it is the case that the Trump campaign, they have been going to these people individually and basically offering threats. If you do not, if you do not endorse when there's still a competition, it won't matter as much. So. Yes.

Nikki Haley just is walking on stage at HQ. so Mike's got to go cover that and he'll hopefully be able to pop back on after she speaks and join us for a recap of that. John, before you hop off, what are you going to be looking for in your reporting in South Carolina the next day or two before you head back to D.C.? Obviously, as you mentioned, there's about 30 days between now and the next round of voting if you exclude Nevada, for procedural reasons, we will. What's the story going to be there in the next? The story is going to be one of the most challenging my editors ever put me up to,

which what is the point of the South Carolina primary? Usually when you cover an election, you know immediately going in what the, like who's going to win? And if every piece of dating you've seen so far means we know that ultimately Trump's maybe at least at the very list by single digits, he's going to win. So what's the point? Is the point for Nikki Haley to put her in contention for vice president? Is it to stay in, you know, I don't know. So in the next 24 to 48 hours, dispatch readers will find out.

We'll know that answer that I don't yet have in my own mind. But I'm thinking through different. I mean, I have some ideas. Yeah. Well, I just start firing ideas at John live on dispatch live. I mean, I would love you to talk to Nikki Haley supporters about whether they'll support Donald Trump in the general election, if it's a Trump-Biden race. I think that's a real question. Usually it's the case that, you know, partisans come around to support, even after a bitter primary, partisans come

around to support the nominee of their party. That wasn't the case in 2020. We've seen suburbanites flee, Nikki Haley-style voters, flee the Republican Party in 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022. we expect more of the same? I'd love to hear from some of those voters. I've only, I've only begun my man on the street interviews today. I was kicked out of Chick-fil-A for interviewing people entering and exiting. I only got two interviews in. But both Nikki Haley supporters I talked to said, one guy was like, nope, it's Nicky or I'm voting for Biden. And the other guy said, nope, it's Nicky, I'm going third party. And that's exactly, and these weren't people who are going to events. You know, that's what I found in Iowa. These are people at Nikki Haley events. They were at her election

night party. Of course, they're highly energized, highly politically involved people. So that's why I kind of spent a little bit of time after my delicious Chick-fil-A sandwich interviewing people outside, just trying to get their sense. And everyone who's a Nikki supporter, everybody kind of knows exactly. And I talked to one who said, yeah, of course, I'll vote for Trump. He's more for the people, a third lady I talked to. I'll vote for Trump at the end of day. But they all know exactly what they're going to do. I don't really get a, I mean, after nine years of Trump, everyone really kind of has a sense of what they're going to do. But yes, that same dynamic of Iowa Nikki supporters saying, no, I won't for Trump.

I'm picking that up so far. Hopefully that gets some more commentary under my belts tomorrow. I mean, just to pick up on that point, Declan, and I don't mean to take over his host, but I want to ask you this question. You know, one of the exit polls that really sort of jumped out at me was this question about whether you would support Donald Trump if he's convicted of a felony. 50% said yes, 47% said no. Depending on what the actual margin is here, it appears that even some Trump voters must have told entrance pollsters if the person they just voted for is convicted of a felony, they won't be voting for them. That's a massive number. And while the Republican electorate, the general electorate won't look just like New Hampshire, that has to cause concern in.

in Trump world, though? It should, and I think it does among the people that are running Trump's campaign. Among the pro-Trump pundit class and the commentariat, that's almost seen as a badge of honor. If, you know, we didn't want those voters anyways, if they're not with us in good times and in bad, and if Trump is indicted or convicted of a crime and they're not going to vote for than Goodridden's, they were Rino Democrats all along. That's kind of the messaging that Trump's campaign has been putting out about

Nikki Haley in the lead up to New Hampshire because the state allows independent or undeclared voters to vote in the Republican primary or the Democratic primary. You pick one, and a lot of Haley's support is coming from those undeclared independent voters, that's, from Trump's perspective, that's seen as a negative for Nikki Haley, that she can attract independent voters and people outside of the Republican base, growing the Republican coalition. Imagine telling somebody that 10 years ago that it's a bad thing that non-Republicans like your candidacy and are intrigued by what you're offering.

So it's really kind of a insular backwards way of looking at this, but yeah, I mean, it's a huge vulnerability, and it's something that I think the Trump campaign is going to have to do a lot of work to win back some of these people, and some of them are just not going to be able to be won back. They're gone. They've been gone since January 6, 2021, or even before then. So it's just kind of silly looking at the way that they're viewing these questions of they're almost okay losing, it seems like, as long as they lose pure. So with that, with that rant, I think we're going to swap John in for Andrew. John, thank you for joining us. Andrew, thank you for joining us. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder

of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is, the consequences of not having life insurance can be serious. That kind of financial strain on top of everything else is why life insurance indeed matters. Ethos is an online platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy to protect your family's future in minutes, not months. Ethos keeps it simple. It's 100% online, no medical exam, just a few health questions. You can get a quote in as little as 10 minutes, same-day coverage, and policies starting at about two bucks a day, build monthly. With

options up to $3 million in coverage, with a 4.8 out of five-star rating on trust pilot and thousands of families already applying through Ethos. It builds trust. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash dispatch. That's E-T-H-O-S dot com slash dispatch. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Looking spiffy. Coming back from, uh, where was it, Manassas for Is that what you were? That's right, yeah, about 45 minutes west of D.C. Can you tell the good people of Dispatch Live, who you were seeing there?

So we had the first joint campaign rally with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of the cycle today in Manassas. They showed up at what I take to be a satellite campus of George Mason University. It wasn't quite clear exactly with the building we were in. to whom it belonged or what it was for, very pleasant space. But it was primarily a reproductive rights rally, which was kind of an interesting thing that after kind of spending the 2020 primary sort of dancing around the question of abortion a little bit uncomfortable talking about it, given kind of the state of how his party's base had changed on that question. Joe Biden is now after, you know, the midterms and a 2023 election, both of which were very, very kind to supporters

of expanded abortion access. Here you have Joe Biden kind of launching a big part of his campaign, saying, here's my pitch, we're going to get Roe v. Wade back. We're going to pitch. We're going to essentially pass federal legislation recodifying it. And I want you to know that I'm kind of the champion of that as opposed to the last guy who was responsible for getting rid of that in the first place. That was an interesting thing. Joe Biden wanted to talk about that, and Kamala Harris got to talk about that. And first gentleman, Doug Imhoff, is that you pronounce his name? He talked about it, Jill Biden, the first lady, I'm sorry, the second gentleman, the first lady, Jill Biden, she got to talk about it. Joe had a harder time talking about it. And the reason for that is

because every 30 to 60 seconds while he was trying to speak, somebody would stand up and perhaps unfurl a banner and start shouting about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and the purported genocide. So they said that Joe Biden is supporting over there. So that was kind of the most interesting thing to actually come out of the event was this kind of growing hostility between these protesters, as is the current fashion, as is the current fashion, didn't kind of all stand up in a block. They hopped up one at a time to kind of cause maximum disruption

throughout the evening. And the crowd grew more and more kind of hostile and was more and more ready to launch in and chant, let's go, Joe, or four more years. But kind of highlighting this weird issue between this kind of one crowd that was here at this event. on what's essentially a college campus, again, I believe, to have this one issue that's really

important to young voters, which is, which is, you know, abortion access versus this other that has really struck a chord among kind of his most progressive, I shouldn't even say his most progressive voters because a lot of them are saying they don't consider themselves to be his voters, but young progressive Democrats who have kind of adopted this cause of a kind of the Palestinian in cause and who have have a not hesitated to make their opinions known to Biden about about that either. I'm sorry. I've been rambling a long time about this.

I'm sure that is not. And dispatch readers can read all about it in either dispatch politics or on the site in the coming days as well. There's a lot to jump into there. And I want to get to all of it as a quick update. In New Hampshire, Dean Phillips is clocking in at about a quarter of the vote. Andrew, that's somebody that you profiled a couple months back. New Hampshire's never been a particularly strong state for Joe Biden.

I was there covering it in 2020 primary, and he left before the votes. He headed to South Carolina, and Jill Biden stuck around and held quite possibly the saddest campaign event that I'd ever see. I wrote something at the time of like Joe Biden's about to drop out because his wife had an event with four people that showed up and eight reporters. And the four people were actually German tourists who didn't even realize where they were. It's a whole thing. He's obviously in a much stronger political position now, but it's not nearly as strong as he probably would like it to be. So with this rally today, with kind of some of the new messaging that we're seeing out of the Biden campaign, there's also news that there's a bit of a campaign shakeup. They're bringing back the 2020 campaign manager, Jen O'Malley-Dillan, to rejoin the campaign now.

She's been at the White House, I think, leading communications for them. Is this kind of like a reset and launch? And, you know, now that Trump is almost assuredly going to be the Republican nominee, they're diving in headfirst and actually going to start going on offense here. Yeah, I want to say they're very happy with the finish they've seen in New Hampshire. I mean, to your point, I think he took fifth place in that primary in 2020, and it was kind of seen as, whoa, that was kind of the bottom for him. And, of course, that was going into the South Carolina primary, which we are now, again, going to be going into a primary that actually matters for the Democrats. But I think that what they were hoping to see in New Hampshire, which, again, does not matter at all.

on the Democratic side this time, will award no delegates at the DNC convention. What they were hoping to see was that essentially just by activating a certain amount of the kind of latent DNC infrastructure there to organize this right-in campaign that they could still kind of put Dean Phillips in his place. And I think it's hard to argue that they did not accomplish that. I mean, Phillips has lived in New Hampshire. He has spent a ton of money there. He was on the ballot, which Joe Biden was not. And, and, it's it's it's it you were talking about all the reasons why it's difficult for nicky haley to go forward from new hamps it is quadrupley quintupley difficult for dean phillips uh to to go forward

coming out of not only the one only campaign where he the only place where he is campaigned but the only place where he was the biggest name presented to voters who walked into the booth so yes what what we saw from biden today uh both coming out of new hampshire and then just at his event he is he's running a general election campaign. He is, he is proceeding according to the pretty reasonable assumption, it seems, right now that he's going to be running against Donald Trump. Donald Trump is the name that drops from his lips when he talks about, you know, the issue that he was there to talk about today, abortion access. He is already presenting to his constituents the sort of binary choice argument that we're starting to see, have been seeing from Donald Trump supporters on

the other side. So it's very plain that both of these elderly men are gearing up to start punching directly at one another. So Nikki Haley has one, a couple things to say before that starts happening while we were, while we were talking, she's delivering her speech in New Hampshire. Haven't watched it live, obviously. I've been talking to all of you, but the reporting that I'm seeing on this other screen here is that it's not quite a concession speech. She's very adamant that she's not going to drop out, that she's going to stick in at least through South Carolina, which again is, I think, four weeks away. So this is not quite wrapped up as much as the Trump campaign would like it to be and much

of the institutional Republican Party would like it to be. So this is a quote from her speech tonight in New Hampshire, which Mike is at. New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not last in the nation. This race is far from over. There are dozens of states to go. The next one is my sweet state of South Carolina. So Steve, with 30% of the vote in, she's currently trailing Trump by 9%.

is there is there any uh is there any hope for for the campaign now that she's vowed to uh to at least stick around for another month or so yeah i mean i think it just becomes real difficult it was interesting i was at nbc here in new york city um doing some preview shows for uh for the vote tonight. And Tom Lama, my colleague at NBC, interviewed David Pluff, Barack Obama's campaign manager, was asking him about the changes in the Biden campaign. And he said, what he said is consistent, what we just heard for me, Andrew, that this is, the Biden campaigns looking at New Hampshire, looking at what they saw as the like results here, and said, okay, this is likely to be now a two-person race with Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

I do think, you know, we saw that David Drucker posted in Slack that Haley's had some tough words for Donald Trump in her speech, didn't seem to be pulling back at all, which, you know, I think leads people to question, what about a third party candidate? But what about no labels? Could Nikki Haley possibly run as a no labels? Could that be part of the game here? I don't know. I'm now asking the questions and answering them myself, as you might have noticed.

I don't know. Mike and David Drucker have both been doing some reporting on sore loser laws, which can prevent candidates who run in primaries in certain states from appearing there in general election races. It would seem to be a rather circuitous path if she were trying to make herself presentable for No Labels. But we do know that No Labels is working hard on ballot access, had they have access in a dozen or more states.

They think they can get it in three dozen plus. They've been pretty clear from the beginning that they are going to run a candidate. if this is a Trump-Biden race. I think we should take them seriously. You know, the political professionals will sort of dismiss them, shrug them off. I think there's a lot of reporting that the No Label's effort is a little disorganized right now, that they don't quite know what the process is for choosing someone who the candidates might be.

So there are reasons to be to be skeptical. goal. But I think given the overwhelming sentiment in the country that the country is just better than a Joe Biden versus Donald Trump general election campaign in 2024, a third party candidate could be a real factor. That flies directly in the face of what Laura Ingraham said. I was watching Fox before joining here. She said the people are clamoring for a Donald Trump, Joe Biden rematch, which, if anything, seems very... Democrats always claim to speak for the people. And Laura's not really in touch with the people, if I could say.

I actually just got off the phone with the people and they're ready. They can't get enough. Andrew, you in Dispatch College on Friday, you guys had some reporting on No Labels and some of that possibly disorganization that Steve was referencing there and kind of the drama surrounding the effort. What is the latest there? And, you know, if they're talking to several different candidates, but we're getting pretty close to when they need to decide on one, are they making any progress?

Yeah. So the thing that we were, it was a weird, weird thing on Friday because they called a press conference a day or so after the Iowa primary that. Trump romped in. And because we'd all been watching this effort, you know, kind of developing on the sidelines where they've been saying they're going to run a, they're likely to run a candidate in the event of a Trump Biden rematch. I was like, okay, well, here we are a step closer to the Trump Biden rematch. Let's see what no labels has to say. And it turned out to be this very strange thing where they set, where they got people together to announce that they had

recommended or asked the Department of Justice to look into possible crimes that were being committed by other centrists who didn't like no labels because they thought no labels might end up throwing the presidential election back to Donald Trump. And it was this very strange thing where it was groups like Third Way and organizations like the Lincoln Project and some of my old colleagues at the bulwark and just kind of a collection of a collection of public comments, disparaging no labels and private meetings where they had kind of plotted ways to discourage people from getting involved with no labels. It was this very strange kind of inside baseball thing that, one, just seemed kind of farcical

on its face because all of the conduct that they were kind of asking the Department of Justice to look into and perhaps prosecute seemed like kind of just cut and dry, protected First Amendment political activity. But two was just kind of odd because, or maybe not kind of odd, but just kind of illustrated the difficulty that they're going to have, which is that, you know, this is the split screen of politics right now is that you have huge quantities of Americans who are unhappy with this rematch that's shaping up, this Trump Biden rematch. And then on the flip side of that, the enormous partisan political pressure to come home to whichever side you happen to think is the lesser of two evils. and the enormous kind of like political operative pressure to get paranoid about any kind of spanner in the works, like a possible third-party candidate,

and paranoid about the fact that that's going to hurt your side more than the other side. And that is a thing no labels is experiencing, whether you are kind of center left and hate the Trump-Biden rematch or rather you're center-right and hate the Trump-Biden rematch. Probably the single belief that you share across that whole class is, man, no labels really might throw this to the guy I hate a little bit more. And so, and so, you know, that's just a thing that they're going to have to grapple with.

And I think they're going to have to find a way to transcend if they do run this ticket. And I'm not sure that that I'm not sure that the way they're going to get there is by trying to get Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project prosecuted for for tweeting mean things about them. It's the mean tweets. Everybody's so unhappy about the mean tweets all the time. If we could just get mean tweets out of politics, I think we'd all be a lot better off. That is a story that we're going to be following very closely. No labels more so than the mean tweets. Just there's going to be such a demand for an alternative if it does.

In fact, end up being a Trump-Biden rematch. Odds are, you know, most voters will come home, so to speak, as we get close to to the general election, but a lot won't, and probably more won't than in previous cycles. So it's going to matter a lot as we go forward. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, your writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place.

With Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools, you can launch a website that looks sharp from day one. Use one of their award-winning templates or try the new Blueprint AI, which tailors a site for you based on your goals and style. It's quick, intuitive, and requires zero coding experience. You can also tap into built-in analytics and see who's engaging with your site and email campaigns to stay connected with subscribers or clients. And Squarespace goes beyond design. You can offer services, book appointments, and receive payments directly through your site. It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience with a single hub for managing your work. out having to piece together a bunch of different tools.

All seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. We're going to try and do a full swap of dispatch live. Goodbye, Andrew, goodbye, Steve. And hello, Drucker, Mike Warren, and Chris Stier. I think we're going to have to come back. Yeah.

Well, I had to drop off earlier, Declan, because Nikki Haley started speaking. She kind of surprised everybody and came out early. So it sounds like she's not dropping out, and she took some partial shots at the front hunter than we're typically accustomed to. You fill viewers in on what she said? Yeah, so it was sort of an escalation, I would say, of the criticisms and attacks she's been making here on the trail in New Hampshire about Donald Trump. So the last couple days, she's, for instance, has brought up that when Donald Trump went

after her by name several times, saying Nikki Haley didn't provide security for the Capitol, on January 6, so she's brought that up before, so she brought that up again. Clearly, Trump was trying to refer to Nancy Pelosi, but he referred to Mickey Haley. But then she added, Nikki Haley tonight in her speech added this, I've long called for mental competency tests for politicians over 75. Trump claims he'd do better than me on one of those tests. If he thinks that, then he should have no problem standing on a debate stage with me. So you can see her sort of upping the ante here and saying, you know, she's trying to bait him, Donald Trump, into debating her before South Carolina. I don't see why he's going to, but she's certainly

trying to play up this. It's a two-person race. So let's the two of us fight against each other. A couple of other things quickly. She said today we got close to half of the vote. We still have a ways to go, but we keep moving up. And then she added this. The worst kept secret in politics is how badly Democrats want to run against Donald Trump. They know Trump is the only Republican in the country who Joe Biden can defeat. A Trump nomination is a Biden win. She says, I can defeat Joe Biden handily. And then she sort of repeated this idea that Trump brings chaos and that as a country and as a party, Republicans want to leave chaos behind. So again,

And there was nothing in her speech tonight that suggested she was getting ready to leave. In fact, she's sort of ramping things up. I will remind viewers that Ronda Santis made a similarly confident speech right after, or the night of Iowa, a declaring victory about a week ago and then ended his campaign a couple days later. So there is a chance, of course, that something similar happens, either pressure from the party or, running out of money, donors, what have you. That said, I mean, just from the way that you described it and the way that I'm seeing it come through on the timeline right now, she certainly does not sound like she's going anywhere. I think we do have Chris Steyerwalt now. There he is. And we also have Drucker back with his audio. Drucker, you are at Trump HQ right now in New Hampshire. How are they

processing tonight, do they see it as a victory? Is this a big enough margin, given the expectations? Look, yeah, I'm here at the Trump election headquarters in Nashville, New Hampshire, which is the southern end of New Hampshire, just above the Massachusetts border. Everybody's happy, right? It's just wind bay, and they won't. And I think they understand that Haley does not have a half domination that anyone can recognize. Haley, as my mention, is looking at it in a very unusual manner. And for

various reasons, which you might be able to find if you read the discussion over the next few days, I doesn't have any idiot plan to get out. I'd also note that it was really interesting in the really cutting way she went after Donald Trump. Now, Donald Trump has not delivered his victory speech yet. And I bet you he was watching this on television.

And so I am purely. to see how he responds to Nikki Haley. Remember, in Iowa last week, he was very magnanimous, very complimentary, and neither Haley nor Ronda Santis really had much criticism for Donald Trump. Haley is trying to pick a with him. It's what South Carolina voters like. It's also the only chance that she has to do something we just really haven't seen in decades. And so I'm curious to see how Trump respond. I talked to a few voters here. talk to some of his supporters, they're fine, they're not worried, they don't care. But Trump, as you know, cares about this.

So his speech will be interesting. He may hold back tonight and then deliver the hammer tomorrow or on true social lift here this evening. Or he might just unload tonight. But one thing is for sure is there's going to be some kind of campaign going forward. What it looks like, we're not sure yet. But Haley isn't going anywhere. and Trump loves to fight. There's nothing he loves more than fighting.

And so I think we're going to see some of that, at least over the next couple of weeks. Definitely. Chris, thank you so much for joining us. And congratulations in person or virtually on the new show. Starting in March, dispatch viewers can also watch you on News Nation on Sunday mornings. So we're all very excited for that. You wrote a piece for us a couple. months ago at this point that we could have been watching the end of the presidential debate

as a medium. It seems very clear that Nikki Haley is trying to pick one with Trump, get him to renege on his promise not to, or reluctance to participate in these debates. Do you think there's any chance that, you know, is a nine-point margin in New Hampshire close enough for comfort that he feels like he needs to get on a debate stage with Nikki Haley? Well, first, let me just say that I am shook to my core about your mustache. I don't, I'm not, I'm not, I'm, I wasn't emotionally prepared and no one warned me that you had grown this mustache and I'm, I'm still, frankly, I'm processing it. Or, or it may just be that I'm cold because I've been doing hits outside here at St.

some college. I'm not sure. I'm going to work through it. I think the difference between what you heard Nikki Haley say tonight and what you heard Ron DeSantis say in Iowa is this. Yeah, they're always going to say, my joke is the most fatal phrases in politics are, the secretary enjoys the full confidence of the president. That is death. You know that you will soon, be shot out of a cannon. And number two is this campaign, we're taking it all the way to the end. We will never relent. We will never drop out. Or you might even name your super PAC, never backed down. But what Haley did, to your point, Franklin, is she went right up Donald Trump's nose. You're old, you're feeble, you say you can beat me in a cognitive test. You won't even debate me.

that was rough stuff. And to Drucker's point, Trump loves to fight. And so here's Nikki Haley that says, okay, bro, come at me. Let's go do this. Now, if you're Haley, my last forecast, and I'm going to cheat a little bit, my last forecast here has her with the potential to have this be single digits, right? it's hovering like she's he's doing better Trump is doing better my benchmark for Trump was how does Trump do plus all of Ted Cruz's support from 2016 right so that was my benchmark for Trump because there is those Ted Cruz voters I just assumed were all coming over into Trump Gannistan and so what was he doing and I was like well he's out performing that by 10 points in town after town again and again But then on the other side, I said, how's Haley doing?

Well, she was outperforming in the places that she needed to perform the combined total of Rubio and Bush and Kasek and all of those folks. So look, if the final number ends up at 12 or 13, it'll get pretty thin. It'll get pretty wispy. But, you know, if it's in single digits and there's plenty of Republicans who would like to see this be a fight, even if it's a, even if it's a doomed fight, I don't know. Maybe she can get them on the stage. Mike, there's been all sorts of speculation throughout this campaign that what Nikki Haley is really gunning for is the vice presidency that she's going to, you know, run as much

as she can, make it as far as she can, and then drop out and get in the running for that number two slots. This does not seem like the move of somebody who is interested in that position. You were actually at an event over the weekend where she basically ruled it out the first time.

For her, after getting these questions time and time and time again. Does that dream over for her? And what does that mean for the way that came around the next month? Well, if you take her at her word, it was never a dream for her. So

I think at this point there is she's really sort of taken herself out of the running again not assuming that she ever wanted to be in the running I mean look the people I talk to they seem to think that you know she wants to she wants to run through Super Tuesday

see how well she does And she's not, again, I do think the main difference is she's acting as if this is kind of the last race she wants to run. She's not acting as if 2028 is the next step for her. And I think DeSantis, Tim Scott, and then really some of the others who are obviously in the vice presidential running, at leastophonic. They're all trying to have a future in 2028 in this party. Everything she's been saying and with increasing specificity and intensity suggests this might be it. And so that changes the calculus for you. If you are running, you know, just sort of set yourself up to be a player in the future,

nothing she's done in New Hampshire has demonstrated that. If you're trying to actually fight him, fight Donald Trump and try to claw some support away from him, this is what she's doing what you ought to do, even if it's ultimately a sort of a futile effort. I don't think she's running for vice president. I don't think she would be chosen by Donald Trump. Trump to be the running mate, and I don't think she would accept it if he offered. That's, yeah, that seems to be where we are. It wasn't where we were necessarily a couple weeks ago, but, you know, as the Haley campaign said

in their memo today, a month in politics is a very long time. So that brings us to South Carolina. We talked a little bit earlier in the show with McCormick down there in South Carolina doing some reporting. Chris, I want to get your thoughts. If Haley's sticking around for the next month, if she's going to make a run at this, what, if anything, will you be watching in South Carolina? What needs to change for her campaign? They haven't really spent much money there. Is there anything that she can do to win her former state? So DeSantis got out of this race predicated on the idea that tonight would be a blowout

and the race would basically be over here and you can't surrender if everything's already if the war's already over there's no surrendering and I think DeSantis was thinking to himself look this the road ends tonight but over the next month

right so we think about people like Trey Gowdy we think about you know Ralph Norman is actually ends up being a pretty good surrogate for her in South Carolina. He's Freedom Caucus. He's hardcore. He's hardline. And he's a pretty good surrogate. I don't know what the number that she would need to do in South Carolina would be. But if she can do, if she could replicate this outcome, basically in South Carolina, if she could

keep it between the 40-yard lines in South Carolina, given Trump's current 30-point lead there, I don't know. I mean, the thing about Nikki Haley's race is, It can go on for as long as she is willing to endure the reputational harm that she will suffer among the Republican electorate of 2028, right? So if you're Rick Santorum, if you're Mike Huckabee, you don't care, right? You're going to chase the frontrunner and you're going to get a lot of TV time. That's when, of course, MSNBC falls in love with hard right conservatives is when they're like, Mike Huckabee, come talk to as Rick Santorum. What's wrong with Mitt Romney?

What is the matter with this guy? And there's plenty of Republican donors who would fund. There are centrist to right-wing Republican donors who would happily fund the nominal cost of, and when I say nominal, I'm talking about a person who, it wouldn't be nominal to me, but for these donors, there's plenty of cash. The question for Nikki Haley is,

as Chris Christie has demonstrated, and as others have demonstrated, there's an extraordinarily high cost to criticizing Donald Trump. And it's not just from Donald Trump. So you've got the third of the party that's super Trumpy. You've got a quarter of the party that's anti-Trumpy. And then you have what the pollster Whittair calls always Republican. And they just want to win. And the longer she stays at it with Trump, the higher her negatives will go with those voters. And they will say, Can't this woman just be quiet? Can't she just go away? And Nikki Haley's ability to make this a race will depend on her willingness to upset those people

and try to push this into, and we talk about South Carolina, how about California? How about the Texas suburbs? How about Georgia, right? There's a bunch of these kind of New Hampshire voters that are in those states, and she could end up with a third of the delegates or 40% of the delegates if she's willing to put her face in the fan. I don't know. And that's, Mike, that's something that we touched on in conversations last week.

Some of your reporting on New Hampshire. New Hampshire is not the only state that has open primaries or semi-open primaries. And we lost Mike. So that questions. But you're right. He agreed with you. He agreed with you so much. He just went away.

He just self-deported. It was that's how right you were. Yes. Well, Chris, the South Carolina. believe is a semi-open primary. There's obviously not as many independent voters there as there are in New Hampshire, but is that, will Nikki Haley have to rely on those voters if she is going to make noise? It's a party-run primary on a Saturday. It's a firehouse primary. And it's going to be very tough for her. And she can crank up Tim Scott's old congressional district, that first CD,

of more affluent, you know, South Carolina is a lot like the rest of the East Coast in that first district around Charleston, north of Charleston, and down. Once you drive up toward Columbia, you hit the hillbilly firewall, and it's West Virginia, right? It's, it is Appalachian, and it is very Trumpy when you get to that line. So it'd be very hard for her. The other thing that will be different in South Carolina, of course, is Joe Biden and the Democrats, are coming to town, right? And Joe Biden had what looks like to me a very good night tonight. And with a right-in campaign did very well.

But Joe Biden's going to be looking to send a message in South Carolina, too. And South Carolina is poised to get real churned up in the next 32 days. And I'm here for it because I'll tell you one thing. It's not as cold there in February as New Hampshire and Iowa are in January. Can you fill viewers in on your travel experience to Des Moines? And I've only heard secondhand, but I heard it was a doo-day. No one wants to hear the poor-mouthing of media personalities about how hard it is to get places. But I will tell you, our friend and colleague Rachel Laramore stayed with me.

She held the rope as I was trying to file after two flight cancellations and abandoning hope and flying into Minneapolis, driving down the interstate. The interstate is shut down. I have to bed down for the night. And Rachel, just with the Centurion's heart was like, I will stay up late and I will rise early to edit your copy and get it to the subscribers. and it was a wonderful dispatch family moment. That is what we at the dispatch do.

Yeah, I've done that drive from Chicago to Des Moines. My in-laws are in Des Moines, and they might be watching right now. Hello. But I did that on Christmas Day two years ago in a blizzard, and I just kept driving by car after car that had pulled off the side of the road and was flagged, like, by officials who were making sure that nobody was in the car. And I'm like, I probably shouldn't be on the road with hundreds on the side of the road. But we made it.

And when I was your age, I would have said, I'm making it all the way. I'm not stomping tonight. I'm not stomping tonight. This is weak. I would have just found back roads when they shut down the interstate. And I would have driven up. And then I realized I was in Clear Lake, Iowa. And do you know what happened in Clear Lake, Iowa?

The most famous thing that ever happened in Clear Lake, Iowa. Buddy Holly. Yep. Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper died. You know why they died? Because they said, ah, this winter storm's not that bad. We can go ahead and travel in it. And I said, dear Lord, thank you.

I will take this as a sign that I have been brought to a halt in my travels at Clear Lake. that I do not want to end up like the big bopper. And I will just, I will, I will take refuge in the Fairfield Inn and Suites of Clear Lake. Thank you, Fairfield Inn and Suites of Clear Lake. Well, we're very glad that you're still with us. We're glad that you're launching your show in a couple of weeks. Very excited for that. And we'll, I'm sure we will have you on at some point in the next couple weeks as we

gear up for a Republican primary that's not ending. So thank you, everybody, for tuning in. We will be back here next week with a primary list edition of Dispatch Live, which will be welcome respite for us here on the team and hopefully for you as well. Chris, thank you for joining us. I want live mustache updates. If they're not live mustache updates in the next episode, I'm canceling my subscription. We got a note from Anthony, a comment who said that when he was in the Marines, he grew it when he was away from his wife. my wife is also out of town right now and that may or may not be why oh okay okay all right

bachelor stash bachelor stash got it yes well have a good night everybody and thanks for tuning in