Nikki Haley is Running for President

On Tuesday, February 14, Nikki Haley, the former Governor of South Carolina and United States Ambassador to the United Nations, officially announced her candidacy for President of the United States. She is the second Republican to officially announce her candidacy, after former President Donald Trump.

Haley has held a variety of opinions on the GOP standard bearer Donald Trump. From strongly opposing him and supporting Marco Rubio, to serving in his administration. She has adopted some of Trump’s combativeness to the cultural left, but also kept her standard Republican foreign policy views. She has criticized Trump, praised him, and defended him, depending on the situation.

Haley has fairly standard Republican Party policy positions. She has indicated that she would support a moderate 15 week national abortion ban. She has rejected identity politics and the narrative of America being a systematically oppressive nation. Her foreign policy views are quite normal by pre-Trump Republican Party standards, but have been met with some pushback by the rising isolationist wing of the GOP.

There are some concerns that, while Haley recognizes the extremist left wing racialist push, she, like many in the GOP, is unable to fight back against it strongly enough. Some in the GOP base wonder if she, and indeed, any Republican politician other than Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, truly understands the culture war and the language necessary to convey what needs to be conveyed to effectively fight it. This is typified by Haley’s overuse of the term “socialist” to describe a dangerous left wing in America.

While socialism is not the answer for America, a little more economic redistributionism is not close to as problematic (and in some cases not problematic at all) as is the left wing cultural push. Cultural, rather than economic, extremism is the danger that the political left pushes. Many of the more populist inclined voters of the GOP consider Haley, and most other Republican politicians, aloof. This is because they view most Republican politicians as not understanding the issues that drive the base.

Haley’s moderate positions on social issues combined with her interventionist foreign policy positions put her in the arbitrarily defined moderate lane of the Republican Party. It is arbitrarily defined because it is contrasted with Donald Trump’s purported “hard right” lane. But this description of Donald Trump as “hard right” conflates style with actual policy positions.

On most economic and LGBT issues, Donald Trump is clearly to the left of George W Bush, the previous Republican President. Indeed, mainstream media and leftist politicians alike use the term “MAGA” as a pejorative adjective to describe a supposed “hard right push,” when unable to give concrete examples of what exactly is “hard right.” The idea of Trump being “hard right” has been pushed by a media and establishment that do not like Trump’s strong pushback against their cultural axioms.

But regardless of how hard right Trump actually is, Nikki Haley will be considered more moderate than Trump. Her target voter will be the suburban conservative. It will be the voter who is against the left wing cultural push, but still agrees with standard GOP foreign policy. It will be the voter who feels like the threats to America are a little less existential. At the moment, Mrs Haley is polling in the single digits, and it is difficult to see a path for her to her nomination. But there is still quite some time to go and much change to be had.

The difference between Trump and Haley’s ostensible electoral strength is indicative of a general contrast within the GOP. That is of a candidate, Trump, who is ostensibly stronger with working class voters and weaker in the suburbs, and a more standard Republican politician, where the reverse is ostensibly true. I use the term ‘ostensibly,’ because we have yet to see if Donald Trump has already set the trend towards the working class and away from the suburbs into place, regardless of who the Republicans nominate.

Can the GOP regain ground in the suburbs, or should it try to maximize its share of the working class vote? Are suburban votes salvageable? Would Haley or other so called establishment Republicans lose many of Trump’s voters in the Rust Belt? Before Mrs Haley can enter into that equation, she must refine and sharpen her message. She must show the base that she understands their frustration and their fears. Nikki Haley has a lot of work to do, but she has a lot of time to do it.