.png)
10 months ago
71 ARTICLE AD
ANKENY, Iowa — It was the day after one of Nikki Haley’s biggest breaks in her presidential campaign, and she didn’t mention it even once.
In New Hampshire, Chris Christie’s exit from the GOP primary the previous night had opened a wider path for Haley there, a state where the former South Carolina governor has been surging in recent polls.
But in Iowa, with its more conservative primary electorate and where Christie hasn’t stepped foot this campaign, there was no upside — and yet potential pitfalls — to invoking, let alone saying nice words about, the vehemently anti-Donald Trump former New Jersey governor.
Waiting for Haley to begin speaking inside a high-end suburban wedding venue where she campaigned here Thursday, Dave Bergren of West Des Moines described word of Christie’s departure from the race as a “positive” development for her.
“In New Hampshire,” Bergren clarified.
Christie’s exit from the race was unlikely to make much of a difference in Iowa, where Trump is still polling nearly 30 points ahead and where Haley is scrambling to tear down Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a close race for second place.
“We've got friends that are Haley supporters, but we've got an equal number of friends that still like Trump,” Bergren said, sitting next to his wife. “I think Iowa is going to show well, unfortunately, for Trump.”
A poll released Thursday by Suffolk University showed Haley now in second place in Iowa. Factoring in Christie’s exit, the field barely shifted — though Haley did get a bump of 2 percentage points.
Christie declined to issue any endorsement as he announced the suspension of his campaign Wednesday evening. And he even trashed Haley on his way out — getting caught on a hot mic before his announcement predicting she would “get smoked” and was “not up to this.”
If she is or not will become clearer in a matter of days in Iowa.
“The reality is, in Iowa, you now have 5 or 6 percent of voters who are looking for a new place to go, and in New Hampshire, you have 14, 15 percent of the vote looking where to go,” said Mark Harris, lead strategist of SFA Fund Inc., a super PAC that has spent more than $54 million on advertisements boosting Haley. “And you know, we’ve got to go out and make the case about why they should vote for Nikki Haley.”
The stakes are significant for Haley in Iowa, even if she is not likely to catch Trump. A second place showing could give her a major lift heading into New Hampshire and, perhaps, bury DeSantis.
As she spoke from the front of the room for 20 minutes, Haley said the idea of wrapping up her campaign in Iowa was bittersweet: the combine she drove, the pig she held, the state fair games she played. She went through some of the greatest hits of her stump speech, pitching herself, as she has for 11 months, as the accountant the country needs in the White House.
The Christie news might as well have evaporated at the state line. And his appeal to his rivals to attack Trump head-on went largely unheeded. Haley only briefly touched on the former president Thursday, giving her well-worn stump speech line that “rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him.” The remark received no response from the audience of Iowa Republicans, who over the course of the campaign haven’t been energized by Trump-bashing like their New Hampshire counterparts.
Haley’s only other reference to Trump in her speech was noting that polling shows she outperforms him in a general election against President Joe Biden — a point she and her allies have sought to highlight. A recent mailer sent to a Des Moines Republican household by Americans For Prosperity, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, shows the conservative group making the same argument: “Nikki Haley crushes Biden by double digits as Trump barely clings on.”
Haley told Fox News on Thursday that she and Christie spoke that morning, but that she did not ask him for an endorsement. Christie campaign spokesperson Karl Rickett confirmed to POLITICO that they spoke. And with the campaign turning quickly to New Hampshire after the caucuses, Haley's operation there, unlike in Iowa, was quickly feeling the effects of Christie’s departure.
In New Hampshire, some staunch Christie supporters are already migrating Haley’s way. Norm Olsen, a member of Christie’s steering committee, said in an interview Thursday afternoon that he’s “enthusiastically” on board with Haley “in hopes of her actually winning over Trump in New Hampshire” and was about to put one of her campaign signs on his front lawn.
“Whether he endorses Nikki or not, I think a large majority of his supporters are going to go to Nikki,” Olsen said.
There are good reasons to think that may be true. A CNN/University of New Hampshire poll conducted before Christie dropped out of the race found that nearly two-thirds of his backers, 65 percent, would pick Haley as their second choice. Christie, according to that poll and others, was in third place in the state.
Haley and Christie drew primarily from the same pool of more moderate Republicans and independents who do not want to see Trump as the nominee. Many of those voters told POLITICO in interviews across dozens of New Hampshire campaign events over the past few months that they were torn between the former governors. And some now undoubtedly will head for Haley — even if Christie himself does not.
But the shift to Haley is unlikely to be universal, and the latest FiveThirtyEight polling average shows her still running more than 10 points behind Trump in New Hampshire, too.
Wayne MacDonald, who chaired Christie’s New Hampshire steering committee and was caught on the hot mic ahead of his campaign-ending speech joining in his maligning of Haley, told reporters afterward that he feels “it’s very unlikely” Christie endorses before the state’s primary.
“All of the concerns he had about all the other candidates, about how they’re not critical enough and not willing to stand up and criticize Donald Trump … I don’t see how he reconciles that with supporting them,” MacDonald said.
MacDonald, too, is no fan of Haley’s.
“I don’t know where I’m going to go, but I’m not going with Nikki Haley,” MacDonald said. “She’s pandered to Donald Trump.”
