Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley isn’t counting on former President Donald Trump to win the Iowa caucuses.
“Talk to the people of Iowa; they’re still making up their minds right now,” Haley said Monday night during a Fox News town hall. “For y’all to say that Trump is 30 points up, I would say wait until caucus day. That’s the only day that’s truly going to show where Americans are.”
Haley’s in the minority of people who seem to doubt the very likely outcome of the caucuses — in which Haley, at best, can hope to finish second. That’s made the first contest on the presidential nominating calendar more of a preview for subsequent races in New Hampshire and South Carolina, two primaries that Haley does have a shot at winning. It has also turned the caucuses into a pile-on against Haley, even though she stands almost zero chance of beating Trump next Monday.
“These things aren’t a vacuum,” said Matt Gorman, the former spokesperson for Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), who dropped out of the Republican presidential primary in November. “Not meeting the expectations and not catching momentum from Iowa will affect how you go into New Hampshire. We see that all the time. There isn’t a reset button.”
That dynamic will be on full display Wednesday night at CNN’s final pre-caucus debate between Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Once again, Trump will be skipping the event, opting for a solo Fox News town hall airing at the same time. The absence of Trump (who qualified for the debate) and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (who didn’t) gives DeSantis and Haley the space to make their cases clearly against one another — with an eye toward the next races on the primary calendar.
Haley’s perceived momentum is evident in the onslaught of advertising against her. The DeSantis campaign released a new ad Monday in Iowa that features comments Haley made recently that seemed to knock Iowa voters, who picked Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas over Trump in 2016. “Here’s what Wall Street-funded Nikki Haley just said in New Hampshire: ‘You know that Iowa starts it, you know that you [in New Hampshire] correct it,’” the ad’s narrator says. “Haley disparages the caucuses and insults you.”
Another ad from pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. that’s airing in New Hampshire goes after Haley on immigration and the border. “Drug traffickers. Rapists. Poisoning our country. But Nikki Haley refused to call illegals ‘criminals,’” the ad says, featuring a clip of Haley in 2015 saying: “We don’t need to talk about them as criminals. They’re not.” The narrator also calls Haley “too weak, too liberal to fix the border.”
Haley seems to be relishing the attention as proof that her slow-burn campaign is being taken seriously as a threat to Trump’s lead. “First of all, I appreciate all the attention that President Trump is giving me. It’s quite sweet and thoughtful of him. But he lied about it,” Haley said at her town hall, claiming the ad took her 2015 remarks out of context.
Trump, whose support among likely caucus-goers tops 50% in recent polls, made some of his most stinging remarks yet about Haley to Iowa voters last week, telling them that “Nikki Haley’s campaign is being funded by Biden donors,” calling her a “globalist” and claiming she’s “in the pocket” of the establishment. “She likes the globe. I like America first,” Trump said at a Jan. 5 rally in Sioux Center, Iowa.
And DeSantis, too, is amping up his attacks, calling Haley a “phony” in a sit-down last week with the Des Moines Register and NBC News.
“She doesn’t have a core set of convictions,” DeSantis said. “She’s coming in here, she’s trying to be relatable but just doesn’t get Iowa. And I think that’s becoming more and more apparent.”
Haley’s campaign, which didn’t respond to a request for comment, has brushed off the attacks as attempts to blunt her clear momentum. Haley is roughly tied with DeSantis for Iowa runner-up and is chipping away at Trump’s shrinking lead in the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary. A CNN poll released Tuesday showed Trump and Haley at 39% and 32%, respectively, with DeSantis languishing in the single digits.
The caucuses are still a few days away, with plenty of time for mistakes to be made, voters to change their minds and extreme winter weather to derail campaign events. Temperatures are expected to dip below zero over the weekend and into early next week after a snowstorm that has already dumped over a foot of snow on some parts of the state.
“The biggest thing is you need to make sure you mobilize your supporters and you persuade them to come out — and it’s going to be 1 degree Monday,” Gorman, the Scott spokesperson, said.
Another wild card is the support Haley has from the powerful Koch network, which endorsed her in late November and is spending significantly on her behalf on outreach, such as door-knocking and mailers, the effects of which might not be fully realized until caucus day.
“I think there’s such a resistance and such a resentment of the idea that this is all wrapped up and over,” said Ellen Carmichael, president of the Lafayette Co. communications firm, who worked on Herman Cain’s 2012 presidential campaign and believes there’s still a chance for a breakout for Haley or DeSantis in Iowa. Carmichael said both candidates need to show “good humor” and “calm” on the debate stage, “the stuff that both seem to lack in some respects.”
It’s also critical to “dispel the narrative that it’s over” and get across “the idea that all these votes still matter, that not a single vote has been cast yet. That’s extremely important to convey.”