The NPR Politics Podcast - Can Nikki Haley Be Republicans' Presidential Nominee?

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

The former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor is attracting new attention with voters. But, she still has a lot of ground to make up to catch former president Donald Trump. Does she have a path to win the nomination? This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Sarah McCammon, and editor/correspondent Ron Elving.The podcast is edited by Casey Morell. It is produced by Jeongyoon Han. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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1.07 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, November 9th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but we'll no longer have to set our alarm at 6 a.m. to set up goals for four- and five-year-old girls' soccer. Okay, here's the show. Go Pink Dinosaurs! I love, love, love, love all of the crazy names for mascots or whatever that the kids come up with.

My little one is now playing on the Gray Wolves, but I thought they should be the Silver Foxes. Mm-hmm. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. The Republican presidential field isn't as big as it was when the campaign started, but the winnowing doesn't mean the opposition to Donald Trump has coalesced behind a single

candidate, at least not yet. Nikki Haley wants to be that candidate, the one to take on and maybe take out Trump. And as her poll numbers slowly ascend, what's her path forward? And let's be upfront here, it is a narrow path. Sarah, you've been out in New Hampshire covering her. Remind us of Haley's resume and her personal story. You know, I've been covering Nikki Haley since she was governor of South Carolina. I was reporting back in 2015. Haley was governor at the time of the racist shooting that killed nine people at Mother Emanuel AME Church, the historically black church in Charleston. That's probably the first time a lot of people became familiar with her. In response to that,

she led the movement to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Statehouse. In many ways, she's kind of the ideal Republican candidate from about 10 years ago at the time when after the 2012 election, Republicans were doing what was known as the autopsy and taking a hard look at the party and talking about being more inclusive. She's a woman of color. She's made her personal story as the daughter of immigrants from India, a central part of her pitch to voters. But she also talks about her racial background in a way that appeals to a lot of Republicans. You know, she portrays her family as an example of the American dream and the idea that regardless of race, people can achieve great things in America. And she's personable.

You know, she campaigns well. She rolls with the punches, as we saw in the last debate. Here she is campaigning recently in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Who has decided who they're going to be with? Really? That's all? I got that much work to do? Seriously?

So, you know, she still has some work to do, as we can hear. Very clearly. So, Ron, as Sarah kind of alluded to, Haley has this background in history that does well with Republican voters that historically should matter in some way. And she also served in the Trump administration as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. And she's pretty hawkish, as we saw in last night's debate, when it comes to matters of defense. But is being a George W. Bush-style Republican what voters are looking for today? Oh, George W. Bush, a name you do not hear invoked on the campaign trail. Historically is one thing, but the Republican Party is not the historical Republican

Party that we remember. Well, it's not even post-Trump. It's post-Trump presidency, but it is still very much a personality-driven party. It's a personality-centric party. That doesn't apply to 100% of Republicans. And that's why Nikki Haley still has some relevance in these other candidates to some degree as well. There is a contest for that. Oh, I don't know. Is it a third? Is it a half? Probably closer to a third than a half of Republicans who really do want a choice would really like to have someone else in the fight besides Donald Trump. not have the baggage, might have something less of a controversial personality, and somebody who has not been featured at the top of the party while they lost a series of elections, as they have been doing. So there's a market here for someone. And right now, Nikki Haley seems to be the, well, the choice of an increasing number of Republicans seeking an option.

Yeah, I mean, it seems, Sarah, that she is doing better in the polls. She's been just sort of slowly notching it up. The expectations were low, and she has exceeded them. Whereas someone like Ron DeSantis, the expectations were high, and he's sort of shrunk. Yeah, in a lot of ways, Ron DeSantis peaked early. And Haley, on the other hand, has sort of taken the slow and steady, slow build approach. She spent a lot of time, particularly in New Hampshire, also in Iowa, doing these town hall meetings where she opens up by saying, I'll answer any question you want to ask. You know, she's done the kind of in-person retail politics that those early state voters

really like and expect, and which Donald Trump isn't doing in the same way. Of course, his base doesn't seem to care. But for those who do, she is making a serious play for those voters. As we mentioned, she has this strong resume. You know, voters I've met in New Hampshire recently were particularly keen on her foreign policy credentials as a former United Nations ambassador, especially right now with wars in both the Middle East and Europe. And as you kind of alluded to, Tam, the other factor is that some of her rivals are just looking kind of weak. We mentioned DeSantis. We saw former Vice President Mike Pence drop out, and she's still hanging in there and kind of continuing, it looks like, to build a bit of a following. And in theory, she probably benefited from Pence's departure.

Right, because, you know, Pence had been running in making a similar pitch, I would say to Nikki Haley's a little bit more forcefully opposed to Trump. But both of them were former Trump administration officials, of course, who have had their moments of criticizing him, but have tried to focus on being an alternative. They both have some appeal to the evangelical lane of the party Pence more than Haley. But I think anybody that drops out right now is a potential opportunity for Haley as she's trying to consolidate that not Trump vote. And what has her message been? Her pitch is that she is like Republican voters. She is one of them. She can relate to their

concerns. She can relate to them as a kind of populist, yes, but also as a person who speaks with some authority, who has been a governor, and who has been in the fight in a lot of ways over the last 10, 15 years. So she has credentials and she has personal appeal. And really, those things are lacking across the rest of the field to a very great degree. And her contrast with Donald Trump is almost as great as the contrast she showed in last night's debate against those people on the stage with her. But she has a real challenge here in trying to create that contrast with Donald Trump because, you know, she clearly recognizes the poll that her former boss has on the Republican

base. And she's been pretty transparently careful not to alienate Trump voters. For example, she calls for newer, younger leadership on the stump, but she really focuses most of that on Biden's age as opposed to Trump's. Despite there only being a three-year age difference. You know, I talked to a former Republican strategist, Rick Wilson, who's with the anti-Trump Lincoln Project now. And he says Haley cannot continue that strategy forever. Eventually, if she wants to succeed, she'll have

to run headlong into taking on Trump. At some point, she's not going to be sniping at Ron DeSantis or Chris Christie or Vivek Ramaswamy. She has to go at Donald Trump. And at that moment, she becomes anathema. she becomes forbidden, and the base will destroy her. And that's a big concern. So the question I have is, who else might drop out and create more space for Haley? Where do the donors go who aren't part of that base, who don't want Trump? You know, Wilson says some former DeSantis backers are looking at her, but the question is, can she get the critical mass she would need to get into a one-on-one fight with Trump? And then does that fight indeed destroy her? I think, though, that there is a competition here for the non-Trump vote that would be worth winning

for Nikki Haley going into 2024, yes, but also beyond 2024. All right, we're going to take a quick break and we'll have more on that in a moment. And we're back. And Sarah, let's just do some pure politics here. What is Haley's theory of the case? How does Haley's team think that she could find a path to the nomination? How does it work? Well, I think the short answer, and here's some brilliant analysis for you, is she needs to do really well in the first couple of primary states. She needs to win. She needs to win. And if not come in first, which looks really unlikely right now, you know, one pollster I talked to named John McHenry says Haley has a theoretical path, but it would be a very difficult one. And she'd need to be second or third in Iowa, at least second in New Hampshire, where she's pushed really hard and potentially win in her home state of South Carolina.

But, you know, she's not the only candidate from her home state. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina is also in this race. So it's a difficult path for sure. Yeah, Ron, she's from South Carolina. She was the governor. That is not a guarantee, certainly, of being able to actually win the state, especially with Tim Scott there and Trump leading in the polls. But South Carolina does except for 2012, ever since the South Carolina primary existed in the Republican Party back to 1980, the winner of that primary, if they had it, won the Republican nomination for president.

Didn't always get to be in the White House. John McCain didn't. Bob Dole didn't. But you know, Ronald Reagan, both of President's Bush, they cemented their grip on their nominations by winning the South Carolina primary. Its record is better than Iowa, New Hampshire or any other early primary. So if you're going to have a home base that you're running from, you really couldn't do better. Ron, what is it about South Carolina that makes them have this good record? It was created largely to be a gateway to the South, and it has proven to be just that. The winner there wins across the South. And number two, there's a reason for that, and that is there are a great number of evangelical Christians, white evangelical Christians in South Carolina

who vote in the Republican primary. And that has been an augur for how those voters are going to go right down the line from George W. Bush or back to Ronald Reagan in 1980, all the way up to Donald Trump, quite surprisingly, in 2016. As we've said, Trump is still the prohibitive frontrunner. There is daylight on policy between Haley and Trump. But ultimately, she was part of his administration. She was the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., though she escaped the administration largely unscathed, unlike almost everyone else who served in that administration. If they left early, they left with their head down. She left with her head up. But how does she do this? Eventually, as Sarah said before, she's going to have to start criticizing Trump more openly, especially if it comes down to just the two of them. Will people notice that there are differences or will they only notice her previous deference. Last night, she said Donald Trump was the right guy in 2016, but he was not the right

guy in 2024. I think that could resonate with a fair number of Republicans who have not repudiated Donald Trump totally, but do see the disadvantages that he is going to be suffering with, and increasingly, as the next several trials unfold. I think Ron's right there. I mean, my sense from talking to Republican voters who are looking for a Trump alternative is that it's less about policy differences and much more about character and style. You know, several voters I met in New Hampshire at Haley events told me they're tired of Trump,

that he's a distraction, he's had his day. And these were very often, most of them, people who had voted for him in the past. And then, of course, there are some never Trumpers, but that's a small number of Republicans. But the problem, again, is that among the Republican base, the kinds of voters that show up for these critical primaries, there's a limited number of people who would choose someone other than Trump as their first choice. That is, unless he starts being seen, you know, widely seen as so weak that he can't win a

general election. But that does not seem to be where we are, at least not yet. Right. I mean, there are trials upcoming, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything either. So, like, what is the endgame here? Are they all just fighting to be the runner up? That should not be dismissed because there is something to be said for being the second who got their name around in this era. And let's not forget, Donald Trump needs to pick a vice president. And it is not inconceivable that he would look around six months from now and say the person who would do him the most good on his ticket would be someone named Nikki Haley. You know, I talked to Rick Wilson, the former Republican strategist about this too.

And he thinks that Nikki Haley is really in this for the long game. She is a particularly ambitious person. And look, she made her compromise and to work for Trump because she saw the future. And right now she sees another future ahead of her. She's young enough to credibly do this race. Don't burn the bridge down completely with the Trumpers. Lose gracefully and then be able to say in a couple of years,

well, you know, now it's my turn. She wants to be ready to be sort of waiting in the wings. But even if she's the number two, the VP or ready for a run in potentially 2028, you know, she is young. She's in her early 50s. That's young in politics. And she has probably a long career ahead of her, which she seems to be preparing for, if nothing else. All right, we're going to leave it there for today. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.