by Nikki Haley may have placed third in the Iowa caucuses, but as she campaigns in New Hampshire for the nation’s first primary election next week, her attention is squarely on just one rival: Donald J. Trump.
Haley, a former South Carolina governor who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, has begun sharpening her argument against her former boss, trying new blows and unleashing a new attack ad right outside the door. She has also stepped up her efforts to present herself as Trump’s main rival, announcing that she would no longer participate in primary debates that do not include him.
In recent comments and in a new television ad, Haley describes Trump and President Biden as two sides of the same coin: politicians who are past their prime and who are unable to present a vision for the country’s future because they are “ consumed by the past, by investigations, by grievances.”
At a campaign rally Wednesday in Rochester, NH, she defended Trump’s attacks on her immigration record, warned voters not to believe his ads against her and reminded them that it was Trump who had wanted increase the age for Social Security eligibility and had once proposed increase the gasoline tax.
“Those are things you have to answer for. Oh, it’s true! “He will not go up to the debate stage,” she slipped.
In Bretton Woods, NH, where she held her first rally after the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday, Haley said she had voted for Trump twice and was “proud to serve in his administration” before delving into her familiar criticism that, yes With justice or not, “chaos follows” the former president. But she also made some more acidic insinuations.
“Most Americans think that having two 80-year-olds running for president is not what they want,” he said to applause at the Omni Mount Washington Resort.
To be sure, Haley hasn’t completely abandoned her measured approach toward Trump. On Thursday, she told voters that she would not attack him personally (“people want me to hate Trump or love Trump”), saying people are tired of that kind of politics. “I’m just saying it about politics,” she said.
She has not outright rejected running for vice president and is not discussing her criminal charges. In an interview on cnn, Ms. Haley claimed that she had not “paid attention to their cases” when the host, Dana Bash, asked her how she felt about her party’s favorite being held responsible for sexual abuse. Ms. Bash was referring to the defamation lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, which is now on trial.
“I haven’t examined this one,” said Mrs. Haley, “but if he is found guilty, he will have to pay the price.” (Mr. Trump has already been found liable in a civil trial, and a jury is only weighing how much he has to pay.)
Although she was slow to make headway in Iowa, she has been competing strongly in New Hampshire from the start, buoyed by a recent influx of cash from her allied super PAC and the prospect of a more independent, college-educated electorate. On Wednesday, her primary opponent for second place, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, announced that he would move most of his staff to his home territory of South Carolina and largely pull back on events. in New Hampshire.
DeSantis aims to build on his own ground ahead of the late February primary, where the Republican base is more in line with Iowa’s mostly white, Christian evangelical voters. Haley, for her part, has maintained long time he would perform well enough in Iowa and New Hampshire to catapult his campaign into a showdown with Trump in South Carolina.
But Trump continues to maintain the lead in both states. It was in South Carolina where Trump consolidated his path to the Republican nomination seven years ago. AND a new survey from St. Anselm College in New Hampshire shows that while Haley is easily winning New Hampshire independents, Trump’s control over Republican voters is so overwhelming that he leads by double digits, 52 percent to 38 percent.
However, he has responded in kind to Haley, seeking to dispense with his closest rivals entirely after a landslide victory in Iowa.
At her country club rally in Atkinson, NH, this week, he attacked her record as governor, describing her as out of touch and not a Republican. Her campaign has sent out a slew of emails with subject lines including: “Nikki Haley loves China,” “Nikki Haley is funded by Democrats, Wall Street and globalists,” and “Nikki Haley is weak on immigration and is “opposes a border wall.”
On Wednesday in Portsmouth, NH, he further honed his attacks on Haley, pointing to her past positions on taxes, Social Security and Medicare and condemning her for having the support of liberals and moderates.
Citing a poll showing that nearly half of Haley’s Iowa supporters said they would vote for President Biden instead of Trump, the former president said: “That means she’s like a Democrat. In fact, I think she might go to the Democratic Party.”
He later criticized her for being too weak on border security, a signature issue that has animated Trump’s presidential campaigns. As she accused her of supporting open borders, she told hundreds of people in New Hampshire: “I don’t know if she’s a Democrat, but she’s very close to it. She’s too close for you.
Trump was also going to say that “Not only would Nikki Haley lose the White House, she would make us lose the House and the Senate,” according to comments shared by his campaign. He left that line out of his speech, but it was reported online and Ms. Haley had a rebuttal ready. While Trump was still on stage, she wrote on X that Trump “is confused about his own record” and noted that Republicans lost the House, Senate and presidency during his tenure.
Earlier in the day, his campaign preemptively refuted his criticism of his record, releasing a two minute compilation capturing Mr. Trump thanking Ms. Haley for her work as governor and ambassador.
Democrats have also been hitting Ms. Haley. They have pointed to her signing of strict restrictions on abortion and immigration and her careful treatment of Trump as signs that she is part of the same old wave of Republican extremists as Trump, rather than a new face.
“No matter how they dress it up, these MAGA Republicans have already told us that they want to crash our economy and strip us of our freedoms for their own political gain, and we will take them at their word,” said Ray Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. , it’s a statement.
Neil Vigdor contributed reporting from Bretton Woods, NH
