Mr. Haley makes a good argument regarding the possibility of selection.
Most Americans are not enthusiastic about the prospect of a rematch between the former and current president. Some polls show her doing better than Trump in a hypothetical showdown with Biden. And in New Hampshire, where voters with no affiliation to either party accounted for 44% of those who voted in the Republican primary, exit polls showed that Trump was ranked 19th among voters. It showed she won by a point, demonstrating her appeal among key independents. The results of this fall’s election will be decided.
“You can’t keep doing the same thing and think you’re going to get a different result,” Haley told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday. “Donald Trump will lose the election for us.”
If this was the Republican Party a decade ago, when donors and establishment elders still held the reins, this kind of pragmatism might carry the day. In 2008, John McCain became the Republican nominee over his more ideological rivals because of his popularity among swing voters. The same thing happened four years later, when Mitt Romney was considered the surest winner of the Republican general election.
Neither was liked or trusted by even the most staunch conservatives. And when neither could actually achieve the promised victory in November, the restive Republican base became even more disillusioned and alienated. William Howell, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, says: “These are people who are dissatisfied with politics and who feel like they’re being sold goods from election to election.”
Then came Trump, who in 2016 overturned nearly every assumption about his chances of winning the election and still managed to win, at least in the Electoral College. (It’s not often noted that in the past eight presidential elections, only one Republican, George W. Bush in 2004, has been able to win the popular vote.)
Despite Republicans losing control of both houses of Congress during Trump’s presidency, and even though Trump himself lost to Biden in 2020, Trump’s grip on the party has only strengthened. . In fact, poll after poll shows that a majority of Republicans accept Trump’s lie that Biden became president through fraud. This makes them even more resistant to rational arguments against the electability of former presidents. His supporters also point to the fact that he will be campaigning while facing four indictments and 91 criminal charges, and that more than $55 million of his campaign contributions last year went to his legal costs. I’m not even upset by the fact that it was spent on.
For all this, Haley has struggled to generate real energy within the Republican base — in her home state, which twice elected her governor and will hold a Republican primary on Feb. 24. Even. A new Washington Post-Monmouth University poll found that just over half of likely South Carolina primary voters said they were enthusiastic or satisfied with having her as her party’s nominee. Nearly 7 in 10 people said they felt that way about having Trump as the standard bearer.
South Carolina Republican primary voters also appear unfazed by Haley’s warning that having Trump at the top of the party in 2024 is the party’s death wish. About 7 in 10 say the former president will probably beat the current president. 63% believe Haley would win in a one-on-one matchup with Biden.
These assumptions are no doubt supported by the fact that Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden in many battleground state polls, but the country’s longest and potentially most It may not be able to sustain itself in the coming months as it endures the most disastrous general election campaign yet.
In 2020, it was the Democratic Party that bet on pragmatism, choosing the more electable Mr. Biden over Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vermont) and Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), who had stirred enthusiasm among progressive voters. I chose. Now they are facing their own challenges. The party has maintained a fragile coalition amid growing divisions over issues such as the war in Gaza, and has struggled to reignite the enthusiasm of disillusioned young and nonwhite voters who are key to its hopes of winning in November. are doing.
meanwhile, Trump is on a near-certain march toward winning the nomination. Haley is right that it could destroy Republicans’ best chance to win in 2024. lie to her Slogan for 2028: I told you so.