Is Nikki Haley Passing Ron DeSantis? And Why?

Let’s rewind to exactly 1 year ago. In the aftermath of the disappointing 2022 midterms for the GOP, one man came off looking stronger than ever. Ron DeSantis. In an election where Republicans had severely underperformed their projected seat gains in the House, and actually inconceivably lost a seat in the Senate, Ron DeSantis won re election as Governor of Florida by 20 points.

Florida had long been a battle ground state, and as recently as 2018, Ron DeSantis had won the Florida gubernatorial election by less than 45k votes, or 0.4%. While the Republican Party, and many Governor and Senate candidates handpicked by Trump struggled, DeSantis had turned Florida from a purple state to a solid red state. And he had done so while enacting strongly conservative policies.

At the time, Ron DeSantis was flying high, and many in the GOP legitimately saw him as the logical successor to Donald Trump. He came within 10 percentage points of Donald Trump in polls, and many betting sites had him neck and neck with, or even ahead of, Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination.

How DeSantis has fallen. While Ron DeSantis still remains the primary, or maybe now co-primary challenger to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, he has dropped precipitously. He now trails Donald Trump by nearly 50 points nationally, and has seen Nikki Haley catch up on him for second place.

Nikki Haley now leads DeSantis in polling for the New Hampshire GOP primary. Ron DeSantis in one year has gone from an ostensibly near equal of Trump for the nomination, to 40+ points behind Trump, to fighting for even second place. How did this happen? And is Nikki Haley really poised to pass Ron DeSantis?

It should be said that DeSantis’ time supposedly neck and neck with Trump for the GOP nomination was likely a mirage. Sure, genuine support and possible support for the Florida governor was quite high, but the specifics of the midterms might have contributed to a momentary Republican look for an alternative to Trump, not a permanent one.

Ron DeSantis was at his highest point and Donald Trump was seemingly at his lowest point. But obviously, the situation that precipitated this would not stay stagnant. In the year since, the Trump campaign, and Trump himself, have relentlessly been attacking DeSantis.

There has also been a consolidation of support for Trump among the GOP base. In light of the left wing media, and institutional attacks on Trump, there has naturally been a desire to rally to Donald Trump’s defense. In the opinion of this writer, Donald Trump has serious character and professional flaws, that should normally preclude someone from being President of the United States.

Even now, the question of whether Mr. Trump is fit to be President is very much in question. But in light of the relentless, usually baseless and politically motivated attacks on Trump, it is difficult not to come to his defense, as a way of fighting back against the usual left wing attack of anyone who challenges them.

Ok, maybe this explains why Trump has pulled ahead of DeSantis. But why is Nikki Haley now rising in relation to DeSantis? We should note that, if something doesn’t drastically change in this GOP nomination process, the whole question of whether Haley will pass DeSantis is moot; Donald Trump will run away with the nomination.

But for purposes of understanding the dynamic within the Republican electorate, we should ask; why was someone who was once the heir apparent to the GOP nomination, now falling so hard? One reason might be that many Trump loyalists are angry at DeSantis for even challenging Donald Trump. They view his entering the race as a betrayal. And as a result, many Trump voters, who would be natural supporters of a DeSantis campaign, have turned on him.

Another reason for DeSantis’ drop could be his awkwardness, real or perceived. While he has one of, if not the best record of pushing a conservative, anti race baiting agenda of anyone in the country, Ron DeSantis simply does not have the charisma that Donald Trump has. People don’t see him as relatable.

And these days, when you seem awkward and not relatable, you’re going to have a tough time garnering widespread support. When combined with the aforementioned problems of many Trump supporters viewing him as betraying Trump, and those on the left wing having a Pavlovian hatred of him, DeSantis finds himself being squeezed off support from all sides.

For her part, Nikki Haley has been able to carve out a narrative and vision of the country. A vision that does not require the almost impossible threading of the needle of pushing for Trump’s policies, but arguing against Trump’s nomination, as DeSantis has been trying to do.

The former Ambassador to the United Nations has also articulated a clear foreign policy, and differentiated herself on the question of fighting the left wing’s extremist cultural pushes. She has acknowledged the fanaticism of the left’s devotion to abortion, but reminded us that fighting for a more conservative but less popular limit on abortion would actually lead to more wins for the left on abortion.

Instead of fighting for, and losing on, a 6 week national abortion ban, which she rightly mentions would never pass in the Senate, Haley proposed more moderate abortion restrictions that the majority of the country would support, and would make America a more pro life nation.

One problem that has regrettably been a feature of the Haley campaign, is her awkward quasi identity politics blurbs. Don’t get it twisted, Nikki Haley rightly rejects the despicable, divisive racial determinism and identity politics that animate the left. She argues against the lie of America being racist, and against the idea that racial identity is determinative above American identity.

She also does not push the arrogant, reductive idea that the left pushes, that if you don’t vote for her, it’s because of “ingrained sexism.” (Arrogant, because the left couldn’t fathom the fact that people are against leftism, and the only reason people could hate Hilary Clinton is because of latent sexism. Missing the fact that they’d have no problem voting for a white male Democrat against a Republican woman of any race).

But she every once in a while has some cringy “girl power” moments, mentioning her heels, or a “woman getting things done.” We know that she is against the insidious side of that, which the left owns, so it’s not a major problem. But it is something that Haley should stop doing, as it is the language of and plays into the axioms of, the left.

Nikki Haley has been extremely solid on foreign policy, and decent on fighting the left wing’s cultural push. But she has not succeeded in speaking to the majority of the GOP base, which is firmly with Trump. Her ability to not try to be Trump-lite like DeSantis may be why she has been rising, while DeSantis has been falling. She can go up, while many feel like DeSantis will never get back to his heights, so his supports have lost momentum and belief.

Is Nikki Haley passing DeSantis? It still isn’t completely clear. DeSantis could very well outperform Haley when the voting starts. Nikki Haley has undoubtedly been trending up relative to DeSantis. But as stated before, unless something drastically changes, to the advantage of DeSantis or Haley, this whole question will be moot. Let’s see what happens.