Can Nikki Haley manage to beat Trump?

Nikki Haley is the woman who has been fighting strong and hard for the upcoming US Presidential race taking on the mighty Donald Trump all alone. Although she stood a distant third in the recently held Lowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primaries, yet her resolve to defeat the former President elect remains firm. Her confidence stems from her vast experience right from being elected as the Governor of South Carolina to being appointed the former US Ambassador to the United Nations.

Where Donald Trump, Ron De Santis, Vivek Ramaswamy and Niki Haley were all in the electoral fray to pose as the Republican candidate for US Presidential elections, yet the defeat of all other candidates in the Lowa Caucus and New Hampshire primary, made them back out of the race. However, it was Nikki Haley who held on to her feet and has been unrelenting to the mighty Trump. Her grit and determination to keep going has caught media eyeballs and has been making Trump highly uncomfortable.

Favourability of Hart Research Associates / Public Opinion Strategies

• Favourable: 49%
• Unfavorable: 39%

Nikki Haley is favoured by those sections of the population who are able to identify value in her tone and her civility which is a clear departure from the model of Trump which is full of rhetorics, with an over-powering personality to likes to maintain an iron-grip on the Republican base and leave no space for a woman challenger. Trump has even hosted press conferences highlighting the failures of Nikki Haley even though Haley tops Biden in the national survey but trails when other candidates are added.

2024 Presidential Republican Primary Polls

Nikki Haley is behind Trump by 64% in the Republican Primary candidates, which reveals the edge of Trump over all his rivals, including those who gave up.

Nikki Haley Polls: Insights and Observations

• Nikki Haley has said that if voted to power, her administration will not only strengthen the alliance with NATO but also with several other countries including India, Australia, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. This is about America having more friends, not less friends,Haley said.
• US Presidential candidate Nikki Haley has been a master of retail politics using age old techniques such as knocking on the door and handshaking with voters to add a personal touch to her vote seeking activities. Such strategies catapulted her to power in the State house in 2005.
• Such was her prowess and capability that she could stun her own party in the then primary by unseating the longest serving member of the House – Larry Koon.
• Haley represents the strand of a traditional Republican establishment candidate who has campaigned as a hawk in foreign policy and as a fiscal conservative.
• Nikki Haley’s political attack campaign used communications tools of advertisements and emails to call Trump a weak candidate, a liar, and a coward for not having enough courage of debating with her.
• Haley is more of an interventionist when it comes to foreign policy mandates as against Trump who has the knack towards bending towards the isolationist foreign policy.
• Nikki Haley is a staunch pro-Israel supporter and also is in favour of promoting the rights of women which has garnered the backing of the Jewish community for her.
• In the last CNN/VNH polls, even though there has been a notable increase in support for both Haley and Trump yet this increase can be further broken down into more of causal impact of events unfolding. For instance, Haley’s support doubled from an earlier 18% only due to the withdrawal of Chris Christie from the Presidential race, while Trump may have gained momentum from the withdrawal of Ramaswamy and Ron De Santis and their endorsement in favour of Trump.

Nevada Primary & Caucus

The Nevada primary for both Democrats and Republicans was held on 6th of February, 2024. Early voting began on 27th of January and ends on 2nd of February. Unrelenting Haley suffered yet another defeat in Nevada even though she did not have any more challenger as South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and Former Vice Presdient, Mike Pence had actually dropped out of the race.. She received only 32.4% of votes while the voters of Nevada chose to vote for the category of ‘none of these candidates’, which itself received a whopping 61.2% of votes.

For Haley a victory in the state run Nevada primary would actually mean nothing except for an opportunity to brag about herself, which also she lost. This is because for her the South Carolina Primary Polls are highly significant since she was raised, educated and native of the state. Her public reputation and personal touch with the voters of South Carolina are important to be held in high esteem and therefore she and her team have been preparing hard for facing the polls in her own state. Her office termed the Nevada primary as inconsequential as Nevada is a Trump bastion where top leaders had been indicted to have acted as false electors for Trump in the 2020 elections.

On the other hand, Trump clinched victory in the Nevada caucus on February 8th by a significant margin. He was in the Caucus alongside Ryan Binkley and won over fifty thousand votes as against Ryan who won only around five hundred odd votes. With this, Trump received the 26 delegates of Nevada and thereby took a large lead of acquiring the support of 1215 leads inorder to become the Presidential nominee of the Republicans. Nevada is the 4th win for him after Iowa, New Hampshire, and US Virgin Islands. Next, Nikki Haley will face him head on in South Carolina.

South Carolina Primary Polls 2024

The American Promise and the Tyson Group pre-poll survey in South Carolina revealed that Trump has a significant support base of 58% of voters in South Carolina, ahead of the primary which will take place on the 24th of February, 2024. Interestingly, Trump fared better than Haley in every possible political and demographic group.

In terms of favorability, Trump fared better with as high as 68% voters in favour of Trump in the home state of Haley while lagged behind by 12 points. In fact, 44% of the voters strongly favor Trump while those favouring Haley comprise of half the favorable percentage of Trump.

The two major issues of public concern for the voters of South Carolina has been economy and dealing with illegal immigration. The majority of them believe that only Trump can save them from the difficulties as against Haley.

The going will be tough for Haley it seems as Trump has the backing of over hundred and fifty present and former elected officials including the likes of Governor Henry McMaster, US Senators Lindsay Graham and Tim Scott. On the other hand, Nikki has the support of the Jewish community but she cites her ability to hold the state government accountable as the reason for her poor support from the government quarters.

To make her way past Trump, Haley needs to appeal to two sections of Republicans. One section who have always despised Trump and would never want him to re-win and the second section who like Trump but feel his loud rhetoric’s and rigid fundamentalist mentality may lose in front of the incumbent President, Joe Biden.

Haley has to very cleverly maintain her distance from Trump without alienating his supporter who are still vulnerable to vote for someone else closer to the elections. According to the voters, Haley appeals because she can establish a direct connect with the voters and is considered to posses the ‘X’ factor. She is also considered to be engaging, smart, visionary with an appealing personality.

Her campaigns are a mix of pragmatism and rational compromise, with staunch conservatism. She does not carry grievances in sacks, and speaks firmly and confidently on hotcake issues such as abortion, women’s right and immigration. He always takes care of not meddling with the culture wars of the nation, as she knows how sensitive issues of culture are and thereby she prefers to leave it upto the will and mandate of the voters of the states.

She has the support of the highly influential Koch network. Some of the well known names supporting her include Stanley Druckenmiller, a former hedge fund-turned full time philanthropist, Cliff Asnen, another hedge fund manager. Then she has the support of henry Kravis, who has donated heavily to the cause of Israeli cultural endeavors, Berry Sternlicht – real estate billionaire, Leonard Stern – the real estate magnate, Jan Koum – founder of Whatsapp , Elliot Badgin – Minesota car supply magnate, Ronald Simon – home builder of California and Terry Kassel – a Palm beach Philanthropist.

Nikki Haley Vs Joe Biden

If Haley and Biden are to be put as direct adversaries, Haley seems to rank equal to Biden in all respects for the upcoming Presidential polls as compared to her rankings with Trump, where she stands half the mark against Trump.

Nikki Haley Vs Donald Trump: Google Share

Last 7 Days

Haley: 5.7%, Trump: 94.52%

Last 30 Days

Haley:16.3%, Trump: 83.6%

Nikki Haley Polls: Latest News

• Nikki Haley raised $11.5 million in her campaign January compared to former US president Donald Trump’s $8.8 million. Current President Joe Biden also raised more funds than Trump in the same time frame.
• Nikki Haley agrees with Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos are considered as babies, giving a considerate sympathetic dimension to her campaign.
• Nikki Haley condemns Trump’s foreign policy for failing to address Navalny’s death, accusing Putin of silencing political opponents. Haley pledges a more assertive approach towards China and adversaries, differing from Trump’s stance on NATO and Ukraine aid.
• While Joe Biden has been using Tiktok to woo the young and first time voters, Haley has been critical of the Chinese application, blaming it to encourage terrorism mentality among the youth who have expressed their support for Hamas and for even the likes of terrorist mastermind Osama-Bin-Laden.
• Haley has denounced the comments made by the Presidential candidate Donald Trump while highlighting the need for America to be a part of the NATO Alliance and how costly an affair has it been to the US financially. He went a step further to say that if any of the NATO members states are delinquent on funding the alliance, then America would allow Russia to attack the member states.
• Nikki Haley has predicted that the United States of America will have a female President in 2024 and it will be either she or Kamala Harris according to her.
• She lost in Nevada primary even though she did not have a challenger as majority of voters voted for none of the candidates, marking a significant blow to her public image.
• She has requested for Secret Service protection citing several threats to her life and security issues. This requires the nod of the US secretary of homeland security, who would first confer with a committee of the congress.
• has raised a staggering USD 16.5 million in January alone which includes USD 11.7 million from grassroots supporters, adding a list of 69,274 new donors. This is her highest fundraising month, more than she raised in the quarters of last year.
• In the backdrop of the ongoing dispute between Texas state Republicans and Biden administration over the Texas-Mexico border, Haley said that Texas has the right to secede from US if its citizens decided to do so, even though the US Supreme Court mentioned that United States is “an indestructible union”.
• In the New Hampshire primary results, Trump defeated Republican rival, Nikki Haley by a 11 points.
• Haley is acting tough on Trump now in the wake of saving her image in the South Carolina primary polls. She considers Trump too old, highly chaotic, very confused, suffering from temper tantrum, and lacking the financial resources to run for the Presidential elections. Haley is all out with her vocal chords to paint the picture of Trump in black who used to be her boss earlier.