The Nikki Haley Comet
The anti-Trump forces are rallying around the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador.
Six weeks ago, I scoffed at what seemed like a concerted effort by pundits to promote Nikki Haley as an alternative to Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, pointing to Trump’s overwhelming lead polls of likely Republican primary voters and the implausibility that they would rally to Haley rather than another MAGA figure if Trump were removed from the equation. Nothing has changed since then to alter my analysis.
But the Haley boomlet has not receded. Indeed, it seems to have expanded into the realms of people with skin in the game.
NYT (“Top Democratic Donor, Reid Hoffman, Gives $250,000 to a Nikki Haley Super PAC“):
When Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, urged Democratic donors last week to rally behind Nikki Haley to provide Republican voters an alternative to former President Donald J. Trump, it seemed a far-fetched plea.
But at least one of the Democratic Party’s biggest financiers has already done exactly that.
Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn and a major Democratic donor, recently gave $250,000 to a super PAC supporting Ms. Haley, the former South Carolina governor who has gained momentum in recent weeks in the 2024 Republican primary race. The donation, which has not been previously reported, was confirmed by Dmitri Mehlhorn, a political adviser to Mr. Hoffman.
The pro-Haley super PAC, SFA Fund Inc., was asked specifically by Mr. Hoffman’s political team if it would take money from Mr. Hoffman, given that he is a Democrat who actively supports President Biden, Mr. Mehlhorn said. The super PAC, he added, said yes.
The pro-Haley super PAC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SFA Fund Inc. has been one of the biggest players in the 2024 Republican primary race, spending more than $33 million on advertising and other expenses. Its biggest contributors in the first half of the year were Jan Koum, a co-founder of WhatsApp, who gave $5 million, and the venture capitalist Tim Draper, who gave $1.25 million.
Mr. Hoffman has financially backed an array of anti-Trump candidates and causes. He helped fund the lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll, the writer who sued Mr. Trump for rape and defamation. In May, a Manhattan jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.
The extra money will help Ms. Haley’s super PAC buy more television ads as she battles to separate herself from Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and close the gap in polling with Mr. Trump. But such cross-party giving is rare and could also risk a backlash. Even before Mr. Hoffman’s donation was made public, Mr. Trump had seized on coverage of Mr. Dimon’s comments urging Democrats to back Ms. Haley and used it in fund-raising messages.
“While globalist special interest donors from both parties forge an unholy alliance to beat us, I’m calling on our grass roots donors like YOU to fight back,” Mr. Trump wrote in a fund-raising email on Monday.
Ms. Haley herself has explicitly made appeals for Democratic backing.
“Anybody that wants to come support the cause, whether they’re Republican, independent or Democrat, we’re going to take them,” she said on Fox News last week. “And that’s the way the Republican Party should look at it is, this is a story about addition, not about getting people and pushing people away.”
Granting that a quarter million bucks is pocket change for someone like Hoffman, it’s interesting that he (and presumably Dimon) have decided Haley is the stalking horse to ride here. And it’s not just rich Democrats with money to burn who have gotten on the bandwagon.
NYT (“Some Republicans Have a Blunt Message for Chris Christie: Drop Out“):
Republican donors, strategists and pundits are publicly pressuring Mr. Christie to follow the lead of Tim Scott and Mike Pence and formally end his campaign. Many would like him to throw his support behind Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who has risen in the polls in early-voting states in recent weeks.
The focus on Mr. Christie’s bid reflects the anxiety that has consumed anti-Trump Republicans as the race moves into the final weeks before the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15. Despite three debates, tens of millions of dollars and many months of campaigning, none of the six candidates still challenging Mr. Trump have made much of a dent in his double-digit lead. And they are rapidly running out of time.
“The people who are supporting Chris are not supporting him because they love Chris Christie — they want someone to take on Trump,” said Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who dropped out of the presidential race in 2012 after failing to gain enough traction to win the nomination. “He has a really important decision to make as to whether to back out and let his votes go to somebody else, or whether he’s going to actually improve Trump’s chances by staying in.”
But the dynamic this year reminds other Republicans of 2016, when Mr. Trump benefited from the large field, allowing him to divide the voters who preferred other candidates. Mr. Christie remained in that race until he finished sixth in the New Hampshire primary. He endorsed Mr. Trump 17 days later.
“Time is a flat circle, and everyone insists we relive, beat for beat, the 2016 election,” said Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who has spent years working to defeat Mr. Trump. “The main thing that Christie could do to make a difference this time is to drop out.”
[…]
Patrick Murray, a New Jersey pollster who is the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said his data indicated that only about half of Mr. Christie’s support in New Hampshire would go to Ms. Haley, while the rest would be distributed among the other candidates. The five or six points that Ms. Haley would earn would not be enough for her to come close to Mr. Trump, who leads New Hampshire by nearly 30 points.
“It would help her be a closer second-place finisher,” Mr. Murray said. “It’s just not big enough to make the difference.”
Surrogates for Ms. Haley have been more hesitant to call on Mr. Christie to drop out. Katon Dawson, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party who now serves as an adviser to the Haley campaign in the state, said that decision would be solely “up to Chris Christie.”
“We can’t control what Chris Christie does after New Hampshire or before New Hampshire,” he said. “We can’t control what Ron DeSantis does. All we can do is watch who is raising the money and Nikki Haley is raising money.”
Don Bolduc, a retired Army general who unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in 2022 and has warmed up crowds for Ms. Haley at town halls in New Hampshire, was more blunt when posed the question. “I think it’s time for all of them to drop out and just let Nikki have the passing lane and just go right into the presidency,” he said.
Mr. Christie’s advisers argue that he is playing an important role by being the only candidate willing to take direct and frequent shots at Mr. Trump. Mike DuHaime, one of Mr. Christie’s top strategists, said a case could be made for any of the candidates other than Mr. Trump to drop out, given that none have been able to break the 20 percent mark in polling.
“Whatever case people make to you about Christie, the other two have no path either,” Mr. DuHaime said, referring to Ms. Haley and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. “Should everybody just drop out, or should we try to beat the guy?”
[…]
“He probably has the toughest path to the nomination, and you just have to face that reality sooner than later,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who worked on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “Ideally, it would have been facing that reality yesterday, or a month or two months ago.”
I tend to agree with Christie that taking on Trump directly is the only path to beating Trump in the primaries. I just don’t think it’s going to be remotely successful. So, I at least get the argument for consolidating support around a more traditional Republican candidate.
To the extent that the primaries are anything but a sham effort, they seem to be winnowing the non-Trump field fairly swiftly.
WaPo (“Four GOP presidential candidates qualify for fourth primary debate“):
Four Republican candidates will take the stage in Tuscaloosa on Wednesday night for the fourth GOP primary debate: former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Former president Donald Trump will once again skip the event.
To participate in the debate, candidates had to meet the Republican National Committee’s debate requirements of at least 80,000 unique donors, with at least 200 unique donors per state or territory in at least 20 states or territories, and garnering at least 6 percent in two approved national polls or 6 percent in one national poll and 6 percent in polls of two different early-primary states.
Haley has emerged as the most viable alternative candidate to Trump in recent weeks, surpassing or tying DeSantis for second place in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Last week, she won the endorsement of the political network led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch. DeSantis’s campaign and the super PAC supporting him have faced recent drama, with the PAC that has overseen much of his presidential operation firing its CEO less than two weeks after the previous chief executive resigned.
With the Iowa caucuses just six weeks away, Christie and Haley have both made inroads with independents and anti-Trump Republicans voters, but the overlapping pool of supporters complicates both of their paths in New Hampshire. Haley currently is polling second in the state, but Christie is pulling more than 10 percent of potential primary voters — a share that could prove essential to GOP consolidation efforts against Trump.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum suspended his campaign on Monday, after failing to qualify for the last debate. In a statement announcing his suspension, he took aim at the RNC debate requirements and primary process, arguing they are “taking the power of democracy away from the engaged, thoughtful citizens of Iowa and New Hampshire” and claiming the “arbitrary criteria ensure advantages for candidates from major media markets on the coasts versus America’s Heartland.”
Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson also did not qualify, having failed to make the cutoff for the last two debates.
Interestingly, this may be the last of the debates as we know them for the cycle.
NYT (“As Grumbles Over Trump-Free Debates Grow, Republicans Weigh Looser Rules“):
The next Republican debate on Wednesday could be the last one sponsored by the Republican National Committee in the 2024 primary race, with the party considering debate rule changes that would open the door to more onstage clashes but also diminish the fanfare around them.
The debate in Tuscaloosa, Ala., comes as Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, is trying to assert herself as the main rival to former President Donald J. Trump, after months in which Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has ceded ground. The R.N.C. is weighing a proposal to end its demand that candidates participate exclusively in the party’s debates, with a final decision expected this week.
Few have been happy with how the debates, which are overseen by the R.N.C., have unfolded so far. Mr. Trump has boycotted them, dampening interest and lessening the stakes. His rivals have been forced to fight among themselves. And lower-polling candidates have steadily been pushed out by rising thresholds to qualify.
Debates are traditionally the marquee events of a presidential primary contest, with voters eagerly tuning in to watch the candidates disagree on policy and vie for their support. But the Republican front-runner’s stubborn absence this election cycle has robbed them of much of their drama.
[…]
The party had previously signaled plans to hold forums in January in both Iowa and New Hampshire before those states’ nominating contests. Now, those debates may not happen as events sponsored by the party, according to four people involved in the process, though no final decisions have been made.
[…]
Ratings for the debates have steadily shrunk. The first clash in Milwaukee, on Fox News, had 12.8 million viewers. The second debate, hosted by Fox Business, had 9.5 million. The third debate, on NBC News and other platforms, dwindled to 7.5 million, according to Nielsen figures.
And the fourth debate will be on a lesser-known platform than the first three, NewsNation. The moderators will be Elizabeth Vargas of NewsNation, the former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and Eliana Johnson of the Washington Free Beacon.
As a matter of principle, I’m all for allowing the candidates to debate each other more often. The faster the non-Trump field is consolidated, the better. I just remain unpersuaded that it matters.
Yup. The problem is Trump is often the second-choice of those whose first choice is a non-Trump candidate. So the assumption that non-Trump candidates dropping out will not benefit Trump is itself overstated, as in 2016. The revisionist conventional narrative posits Trump dominated the 2016 Republican primary opponents due to its fractured field. The reality is Trump was both the preferred #1 and #2 pick of GQP primary voters, prevailing even in head-to-head polls.
I don’t think the landscape is so much different in 2024, but I guess the anti-Trump billionaires have to try something before they either begrudgingly coalesce behind Biden or admit defeat and endorse Trump.
Haley is setting herself up nicely for 2028 tho, if by then the MAGA fever has broken.
New Hampshire has a open (ish) primary system, wherein people who are registered “undeclared” can pull either a Republican ballot or a Democratic one. Since the DNC has decided not to compete in NH, I’m hoping Dem-leaning undeclareds will pull Republican ballots and vote for Haley. While I don’t think it would be enough to beat Trump, if she gets close it will drive him nuts. His ego won’t be able to handle it, hopefully driving even more money and support to her.
I really think the prospect of a second Trump presidency is alarming, and believe Haley is the least-awful of the horrible field of Republicans (and yes, I know her positions, she’s dreadful too, but at this point I’d rather risk “least-awful” than Trump 2.0).
Haley needs Trump to die or go to prison. That’s why she’s in the race. She’s a sort of vice president to an ex-president.
I think the reality of Trump’s accelerating mental decline is beginning to take hold. But the MAGAts will vote for him even if he’s dead, or in prison, and of course dementia is a feature not a bug for them. If his name is on a ballot, they’ll vote for him.
The question is whether the non-MAGAt GOP voters actually exist in any numbers.
I actually like the timing here. The Biden-is-senile narrative has peaked, I believe, absent some new fuel. The Trump is senile narrative is just catching on. Hopefully Black voters, Hispanic voters and Hamas-loving ‘progressives’ will manage to pull their heads out of their asses before November and we can actually save the Constitution and American democracy.
Black voters will be voting Democratic at a 90%+ clip in 2024, as we always do.
What we need is whites, particularly white men, and even more specifically old white men to (finally!) take responsibility for the terrible outcomes of their collectively selfish politics, and stop giving a majority and supermajority of their votes to proto-fascist Republicans.
Instead of deflecting, making excuses, and blaming blacks and Hispanics for everything — expecting us to save America from problems caused by its white majority.
@DK:
Uh huh, and what Napoleon needed at Waterloo was for the Prussians to suddenly change sides. The majority of White males are what we might call The Enemy. It’d be great if The Enemy voted for our guys, but they don’t because they are: The Enemy.
Votes have to come from people who are not The Enemy. People who care about choice, and LGBT rights, and support democracy. We might call them Our Side. We have plenty of potential votes on Our Side, more than enough to defeat The Enemy, unless the people on Our Side are whiny children incapable of rationally assessing reality.
So it is politically naive to insist that the problem is The Enemy because, guess what? We fucking know The Enemy is The Enemy, what we don’t know is whether a significant slice of Our Side are fucking idiots.
@Michael Reynolds:
Or they don’t because Americans love to waste time leaping to blame black and Hispanics, trashing “moralism,” and legitimizing whack excuses (“economic anxiety” and “a liberal was mean to me on Facebook, so now I’m a fascist”)…
…instead of raising our sons better, applauding moral clarity, and telling our parents to get their crap together.
@DK:
@Michael Reynolds:
White men don’t have to vote for Biden, they just have to stay home on election day.
@Michael Reynolds:
There has been a notable shift in the media narrative over the past couple of weeks towards more pointed Trump critique, including of his cognitive gaffes.
I wonder what is driving it; I suspect its Biden supporters working the refs along with Haley and DeSantis ramping up their attacks.
@DK:
Wishes. Wishes for things that may have an effect in 20 years, or alternately wishing we could rewrite the past. But what we have in the present reality, is an election in 11 months, which is not enough time to rewrite the future or the past, we need to win this election, under these circumstances, with these candidates, right now.
I am a White male who votes D, and I consistently vote against my fellow White males in large part because I care about minorities and women. I vote to raise my own taxes, for example. (And a reminder: taxes don’t just magically come out of my paycheck, I sit down and write six figure and even seven figure checks to the IRS and that’s not fun.) But if the minorities DGAF, then why am I voting to pay an extra hundred grand into the Treasury? Why am I donating to D candidates in places where I don’t even live? Why should I care about redistricting in Alabama if the people I’m trying to protect don’t care?
I mean, seriously, “Why should Black voters…?” Because this country is run by White people who are happy to make life worse for Backs and every other minority. It’s your ass on the line, DK, not mine. If you can’t be bothered, then why the hell should I care?
This is not about fairness, this is about power. All the complaints, the “why should we have to…” formulations, are beside the point. Do you want to win, or do you want to lose? It’s a binary choice. If we expect to win then we need all of Our Side, no malingering, no conscientious objections, just pure determination to win. If we lose it will absolutely be the fault of anyone on Our Side who fails to show up for the fight.
@DK:
Please unpack this for me a bit. I’m a white guy in my 60s. Obama voter. Hillary voter. Biden voter. Is the first, and possibly a second Trump administration somehow my fault? All older white men are selfish? All are responsible for the rise of Trump?
If a white man directed these sorts of generalizations at people of color or women, they would be called racist and/or misogynist, and not without justification.
@anjin-san:
Except a white man did exactly that in this very thread. All blacks and Hispanics have our heads up our asses?
Of course, you skipped right over that with no complaint or comment. Because in some circles generalizing about, blaming, and attacking minorities is okay — it’s only when we defend ourselves and respond in kind that all the hypocritical, phony outrage starts. Which is exactly my point.
Michael Reynolds says something racist.
Your response to that: *crickets*
And, yes, that is one reason why we have Trump. Because too many y’all will not speak up and hold each other accountable, politically.
Well, it’s going to be a weird election. We have two very old incumbents, one of whom is the subject of several criminal prosecutions. We haven’t seen anything like this before, so I don’t have as much faith in the conventional wisdom.
For me, these potentials make the contest for second place in the GoP primary more interesting and potentially important. It’s not difficult to see the incentives for ambitious Republicans to position themselves to step in should Humpty Dumpty fall – either figuratively or literally. Democrats have it easier since Harris is already the backup QB, but Newsom may be positioning himself for that considering his actions of the last year and the weird decision to “debate” DeSantis.
Concerning the latest kerfuffle between DK and MR, I – as one of the so-called “old white men” that DK constantly derides – took MR’s comments in the context of pretty consistent polling over the last year that Democrats are not just losing ground on the white working class, but also a non-trivial portion of the non-white working class. And this is particularly the case in the swing states that will likely decide the election, where polling shows Trump with a pretty big advantage.
Ruy Teixeira has details and analysis here.
and
And since partisanship seems to be a battle for the 50 yard line, net losses – even relatively small ones – in swing states can be decisive.
So I tend to think DK and MR are both wrong – education and class are where the shifts are happening, and those shifts are not contingent on skin color. Democrats need to shore up the working class vote generally.
And now we have this circular firing squad on the left over the Israel – Palestine conflict, which – regardless of where one falls on that issue – is dividing the Democratic coalition at an inopportune time. That said, chances are this will be in the rear-view mirror for most people come election time, but this topic has an atypical amount of passion and vitriol and the division here hurts Democrats more than Republicans.
But ultimately, my view is that this election is likely to hinge on the economy, assuming the previously mentioned potentials don’t materialize. And there’s really nothing Biden or the Democrats (much less Trump and the Republicans) can do about that. The course of the economy over the next 11 months will depend on factors that are already baked into the cake, what the Fed decides to do with interest rates, and the vagaries of markets and human psychology.
Oh, Bill Haley and The Comets. I totally missed the allusion, until work turned my brain to musch.
@DK:
Can you show me exactly where he said that? It’s been a long day, perhaps I am missing it.
@anjin-san: After you show me “exactly” where I said “All older white men are responsible for Trump.”
I doubt anything was missed. It’s just the same ole tired double-standards.
@DK:
I have no idea where you might have said that. I know didn’t claim that you did. I did say:
So, I asked you a series of questions. I’m not being snarky, I would genuinely like to hear your answers.
At any rate, you seem to make a practice of putting words in the mouths of “old white men”, and then using the fictional quotes to prove that said OWD are racist/racist enablers.
@DK: @anjin-san:
Guys, we agree here – we don’t want Trump. We don’t need purity tests or “not all white/black people…..” statements or accusations that somebody on our side (Reynolds) said something you perceived as racist once – he’s not a racist, he’s on our side.
We don’t need to be attacking our allies – our enemies will be happy to do that for us. There is real evil out there and our infighting over less-than-perfect speech is going to distract us.
@DK: “There has been a notable shift in the media narrative over the past couple of weeks towards more pointed Trump critique, including of his cognitive gaffes.
I wonder what is driving it; I suspect its Biden supporters working the refs along with Haley and DeSantis ramping up their attacks.”
It might also be reality penetrating their brains:
1) Trump won’t be thrown in prison – ever (our corrupt legal system will see to that).
2) Trump won’t conveniently die.
3) Trump is demented – his speeches show that.
4) Trump’s dementia will be accepted by 90% of Republicans.
5) Trump’s dementia will only be known to the bulk of the American people IF the media accurately and repeatedly hammers on the message – this would require the media to do it’s nominal job, which requires an unusual feeling among the media.
6) Trump *will* be the GOP nominee.
7) Trump will have a 50% chance of being elected. IMHO, higher, because the GOP state governments will cheat.
8) Trump has laid out his plans and they are terrible.
9) Trump will have a vast army of people eager to help. He has learned from the last time.
We have two very old incumbents running, one of which is subject to serious and credible criminal charges. That creates problems but also opportunities.
Our parties are too weak to do any of the things a normal party would, but other players are hedging bets. Someone will want to be waiting in the wings if Trump dies or commits political seppuku. Likewise, Dems need someone if Biden dies. Harris is there which is a huge advantage compared to the GOP, but it seems clear Newsome is positioning himself to be the team QB if needed.
In short, it’s not a normal election cycle on a number of different dimensions, and in my view that increases the uncertainty.
@Barry: I suspect that quite a lot of Americans are perfectly happy to vote for Trump in spite of exactly how destructive he will be. The politicians will support Trump up to and into Americans getting thrown into concentration camps because they’re terrified of the MAGAts voting against them, and the rest think voting for Trump will be just dandy because they want to be amused/entertained/pandered to.
People are going to have to learn the hard way around that life isn’t a video game, you don’t get reboots, and certain decisions cannot be compensated for.
Not sure how that second comment of mine posted, which is mostly a duplicate of my first. Feel free to delete it.
OTB sometimes does weird things for me on my phone.
DK: blacks and Hispanics have our heads up our asses?
You edited Mr. Reynolds comment as he added “Hamas loving progressives” as also having their heads up their asses. I assume there are many white people who are Hamas loving progressives, no?
By purposely leaving out that phrase, perhaps, Mr. Reynolds revised statement is not dripping with as much racism as you think, yes?
The NYT has a piece this morning along the same lines as my first comment WRT current Democrat weakness in swing state polls.
Gift link
@anjin-san: You make it practice of being a hypocrite who pushes double-standards.
Michael Reynolds generalized about blacks and Hispanics. You don’t have any problem with that, twisting yourself into rhetorical knots to rationalize it and excuse it. Rather than just saying, “Yeah, he shouldn’t have done that,” which you and some others here don’t have the integrity or consistency to do.
I didn’t say anything worse about old white men that he said about blacks and Hispanics. I pointed out that a majority and of white, white men, and old white men” gave a majority of super majority of their votes to Trump, which is reality. You are defensive about this reality, so you responded with lectures about generalizing and racism, while putting words in my mouth about “all old white men.”
If Michael Reynolds gets to generalize about “blacks and Hispanics,” then the rest of us get to generalize about old white men. If you get to be inexact when parsing my words, I get to be inexact while parsing yours and his. I’m not playing along with your phony, selective double standards.
@Tony W: We don’t need people on our side blaming and scapegoating “blacks and Hispanics.”
This is not new with Michael Reynolds. Last week he attacked the pope for his Argentinian heritage. Then tried to hide behind some ridiculous rationalization about nationality — same as Trump attacked a judge for his Mexican heritage or when racist rightwingers attacked Obama for his birth certificate then claimed it was just about nationality.
This is a pattern. And the pretense it isn’t racist is pathetic coming from the same people who insinuate it’s racist generalization to highlight the plain fact that white men vote for Trump at a supermajority clip.
But like I said in the first place, this is one reason why we have Trump. When it comes to the racism of old white men, it’s parsing and excuses and rationalization. Anything other than saying, “Knock it off.”
But we’ll leap in outrage to call out “blacks and Hispanics” who say “A majority of old white men voting for Trump is selfish and destructive.” It took all of a few comments to deem that racist. But Michael Reynolds’s gross comments? Nothing racist there.
America in a nutshell.
@Michael Reynolds: Who are the progressives that are “Hamas-loving “?
@becca: Anyone who disagrees with his “Israel is only doing the minimum necessary to secure its borders” position, based on what I read before I gave up on that thread topic.
@DK:
So your response when you see other people doing something you don’t approve of is “Cool, now I can do that too!”
You conveniently left out your comment about the “collective selfishness” of “old white men”. So you not only rewrite the comments others make, you rewrite your own – which I guess is understandable given some of the things you say.
I have absolutely no problem with the statement “A majority of old white men voting for Trump is selfish and destructive” aside from the ageism of the “old man” dig you like to employ.
If you want to present yourself as morally superior, try acting like it.