Donald Trump has adopted a new strategy for the Republican primary: instead of assuming he can coast to the nomination, he’s going after Nikki Haley.
In the past few weeks, Trump’s super PAC MAGA Inc. has spent nearly $3.5 million in anti-Haley advertising, according to a report from The Daily Beast. The bulk of that money went to an ad buy, running a commercial accusing Haley of flip-flopping on support for a gas tax while she was governor of South Carolina. But several hundred thousand dollars also went to anti-Haley mailers and text messages.
Despite being more than six months into primary campaigning, this is still one of the first times that Trump’s team has targeted a specific candidate, instead of lashing out at the rest of the Republican field in general. Trump ran a few ads early on slamming Ron DeSantis, once touted as Trump’s natural successor, but spent far less in comparison.
DeSantis’s campaign failed spectacularly to gain steam, while Haley has seen a recent jump in polls. RealClearPolitics’s rolling average of the last three weeks of polling currently has Haley tied with DeSantis for second place, although Trump still enjoys a hefty lead.
Trump’s decision to attack Haley could backfire by revealing she’s the opponent who scares him most. Giving her such a spotlight could actually consolidate the conservative anti-Trump vote behind her. Haley herself is taking the ad campaign as a win.
“Two days ago, Donald Trump denied our surge in New Hampshire existed. Now, he’s running a negative ad against me,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter) when the ad first ran in mid-December. “Someone’s getting nervous.”
Haley has also pushed back against the premise of the ad. The ad claims that as governor, Haley reneged on a promise not to raise South Carolina’s gas tax. That allegation has been widely debunked as misleading: in reality, Haley had suggested raising the gas tax while simultaneously cutting the income tax. The bill did not pass.
“Everyone from Joe Biden to Donald Trump is attacking Nikki for one reason: She’s the only candidate with momentum,” a senior Haley adviser told The Daily Beast, speaking anonymously.
Unfortunately, Haley isn’t doing herself any favors by generally refusing to go after Trump in the same way. She ended 2023 by refusing to say that slavery was the cause of the Civil War, which fellow Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie ascribed to her being afraid of alienating Trump supporters.
Haley then said she would pardon Trump if he is convicted for trying to overturn the 2020 election. This isn’t the first time she has said she would let her former boss off the hook.
Stuart Stevens, the lead strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, said he doesn’t think Haley is ready to go head-to-head with Trump. He described her as a “bundle of ambition with no particular purpose.”
For instance, Stevens told The Daily Beast, Haley undermined any claims that her campaign is about upholding the constitution because she said she’d pardon Trump, “someone who tried to subvert the constitution.”
“It’s just a very confused candidacy,” Stevens said. “She’s running because she would really like to be president. That’s OK, but it’s not a particularly compelling reason for anyone else to vote for her.”