The Crowds Are At Trump Stadium
Tuesday there was a hilarious report by NBC News about DeSantis’ two shady and completely illegal SuperPACs fighting over the cash to attack Nikki Haley. It nearly came to blows between two macho-men who work for a guy who wears high-healed boots to make himself look taller, Jeff Roe from Never Back Down and Scott Wagner from Far Right. Never Back Down ran an ad comparing Haley to Hillary Clinton and it backfired and made Iowans hate DeSantis even more, so he started a second SuperPAC, named— appropriately— Far Right PAC, pretending it’s an independent operation, even though it’s 100% run by DeSantis staffers. Anyway, the goal of both is to stop the other person running in the high heals.
It’s a continuation of the circular firing squad perception that has marred DeSantis’ presidential campaign. When he entered the race in May, the governor was seen as the overwhelming favorite to pose the biggest threat to Trump— a prospect that was to be boosted by Never Back Down, which pledged to have a budget upward of $200 million.
That group has now poured in $100 million over the past nine months, a timeframe that saw DeSantis go from having front-runner-type prospects to trailing Trump by huge margins in most public polling, and increasingly losing ground to Haley in key early states. A Washington Post/Monmouth University poll released last week had DeSantis in fifth place in New Hampshire (at 7%), with Trump comfortably in first (46%) and Haley firmly in second (18%)."I'm a bit agitated these guys have spent all this money for no return," one DeSantis contributor said in explaining the hesitation that deep-pocketed donors have when Never Back Down asks for more cash.
"You don't just keep throwing money at Radio Shack."Throughout that time, Never Back Down leadership and longtime DeSantis allies butted heads over strategic direction, a brewing bit of tension that led to the open hostilities between key advisers last week and ultimately the creation of a new committee led by DeSantis confidants.“Ron has gone from being a super PAC puppet to having his own puppets with a super PAC,” said a senior figure in DeSantis world who has lost faith in the campaign.
Dylan Wells, Hannah Knowles and Maeve Reston were part of the buzz that Haley— not DeSantis— is the one who will become the nominee if Trump dies or goes to prison. She’s “pushed past DeSantos to become the top alternative to Trump,” they wrote, “dynamic of the Republican presidential race less than two months before the first nominating contest.”
Most Republicans just love the theatrics and comedy of Trump “stoking grievances, vowing revenge against critics if returned to power and using the four criminal indictments he faces as a rallying cry.” His moron base cares as little about policy and governance as he does— sop why not enjoy the soap opera?
Beyond Haley’s polling gains in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina— gains against DeSantis, not Trump, “built on well-received debate performances, Haley has also drawn fresh attention from some wealthy donors and is getting bigger crowds on the trail with a pitch rooted in general election appeal and reversing the GOP’s losing streak, as well as building consensus on some divisive issues such as abortion,” although she recently admitted she would sign the kind of draconian 6 week ban that the vast majority of normal Americans abhor.
“I think she’s— if you look at the race as a whole— clearly in second place right now,” said Jimmy Centers, an Iowa-based Republican consultant. “The question for her is can she sustain this and have an organization ready in Iowa to organize on caucus night and then maintain that through New Hampshire?”
Haley faces some significant challenges in the months ahead. Her pitch to move on from Trump is out of step in a party where he is largely beloved. She is facing attacks from critics who claim she tries to have it both ways on big issues, from her shifting stance on Trump to her lack of specifics on abortion. There are questions about the strength of her ground game, particularly in Iowa, where DeSantis and Trump have laid stronger foundations, local operatives said. Chris Christie’s continued presence in the race complicates her ability to consolidate the support of anti-Trump independents in New Hampshire. And there is a long record in recent presidential elections of candidates experiencing a late burst of momentum only to fizzle out.
Haley’s campaign sees a calendar that lines up well enough to open a narrow path, wagering that the field will shrink by the time of the South Carolina primary, she and her allies have said, setting her up for a head-to-head contest against Trump in her home state. But DeSantis still runs ahead of Haley in national polls and his allies are wagering on a strong Iowa showing that could boost his chances elsewhere.
Mark Harris, the lead strategist for a pro-Haley super PAC, described a strategy of “a strong showing in the first two states that allow us to have a strong showing in South Carolina, and set up for Super Tuesday” and contrasted her “eggs in multiple baskets” versus DeSantis’s focus on Iowa. Much of Haley’s efforts have been focused on New Hampshire, where she campaigned Monday and hit both President Biden and fellow Republicans.
“It’s not over exaggerating to say the world is on fire. There’s a lot going on in our country, and it’s not good,” Haley said. “There’s nothing I would love more to tell you that Biden did that to us.” She added, “But I’ve always spoken in hard truths and I’m going to do that with you today, our Republicans did that to us, too.”
Haley has criticized Trump in more direct terms, arguing he cannot win the general election in 2024. Trump has started to attack Haley periodically, nicknaming her “birdbrain,” but still focuses most of his ire on DeSantis.
Haley’s trajectory has brought fresh scrutiny to her record and forceful attacks from opponents over her encouragement of investments from China when she was governor of South Carolina to her hawkish foreign policy views, including her support for U.S. military aid to Ukraine, some of which are out of step with many in the increasingly isolationist GOP base.
The DeSantis campaign has suggested she is too moderate to be the GOP nominee, hitting her for citing Hillary Clinton as an inspiration to run for office and criticizing her for a past social media post saying that the death of George Floyd “needs to be personal and painful for everyone.” At the same time, the Biden campaign has branded her a MAGA extremist, pointing to her signing a 20-week abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest and for recently saying she would have signed a six-week ban as governor of South Carolina, even as she advocates finding consensus on the issue.
Haley has responded to such attacks by reminding voters she’s been underestimated before in races she later won and warning her opponents “I kick back.” She’s responded to opponents sharply at the debates, which have at times featured gendered attacks, prompting concerns about sexism in the party. Haley is the only woman in the GOP race.
At a town hall in Nashua on Monday night, Christie, a former New Jersey governor, appeared to suggest that Haley has made conflicting statements to say what people want to hear, and added, “Beware of those folks, because you give them the power, they won’t stand by anything they tell you. They’ll do whatever is politically expedient at the moment.”
…DeSantis’s team argues Haley doesn’t have enough appeal with Trump supporters to win, with campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo declaring that “every dollar spent on her candidacy is an in-kind for the Trump campaign.” Advisers say DeSantis can pierce the sense of inevitability around Trump’s candidacy with a strong performance out of the gate in Iowa— where he has concentrated his resources and has the endorsement of Gov. Kim Reynolds (R)— paving the way for more voters, including Trump backers, to swing his way in subsequent states.
“Nikki has the Never-Trump, Wall Street establishment behind her right now,” said Kristin Davison, chief operating officer of Never Back Down. “Unfortunately for her, she has no where to grow from there and at the end of the day, those Never-Trump voters will coalesce around the only real conservative who can beat Donald Trump— Ron DeSantis.”
To many Republicans, however, the argument of who can be the strongest Trump alternative is of little consequence given his command in the state, where he drew a large and enthusiastic crowd over the weekend and disparaged Haley and DeSantis.
Haley’s ascent in the early states has drawn the attention of many wealthy GOP donors who want to prevent Trump from winning the Republican nomination but had been skeptical that any of his rivals had the mettle to defeat him. Some have been drawn to her views on abortion and foreign policy, including her staunch support for Israel.
The battle for donors between Haley and DeSantis has heated up over the last two months, most notably when their representatives were asked to map out their respective paths to victory at a gathering of the American Opportunity Alliance— a group that includes some of the party’s most influential donors including Paul Singer, Ken Griffin and Kelly and Joe Craft.
Kelly Craft— who, like Haley, served as Trump’s U.N. ambassador— and her husband have not taken sides in the primary. But they are hosting a fundraiser for Haley in the coming weeks after hosting one for DeSantis in September that netted more than $300,000. The Crafts declined to comment.
Griffin, the CEO of Citadel who had seemed content to stay on the sidelines this cycle, recently signaled his interest in Haley in a Nov. 14 interview with Bloomberg Television, stating that he was “actively contemplating” putting his financial support behind Haley and getting close to “the finish line” on that decision. A representative for Griffin declined further comment on his thinking.
Eric Levine, another influential donor and New York attorney who raised money for Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) before he exited the race, is now raising money for Haley and hosting a fundraiser for her in New York City in early December and calling for lower polling candidates to “demonstrate their patriotism” by suspending their bids and endorsing her.