Is It Time To Take Nikki Haley Seriously?

Her poll numbers are climbing, she won the debates, and now she has the official backing of the Koch Network

Photo of Nikki Haley on the campaign trail, courtesy of the BBC

Yesterday, former Governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, scored a huge endorsement from the Koch Network, meaning she’s now got major money and organizational power behind her candidacy.

I haven’t paid much attention to the GOP primary race, in large part because Trump has dominated the field by high double digits. But his first place position does hide a truth: He doesn’t command a majority of Republican support in the early contests, just a plurality.

Nikki Haley hopes to capitalize on that. After all, at least in theory, there are more “someone else” votes than Trump votes in the early races in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and Haley’s home state of South Carolina.

But to do so, she needs to consolidate support among the not-Trump voters. In her way are three male candidates who are mostly bluster and grievance, whether it’s against the “woke left” or, in the case of Chris Christie, his former boss, Donald Trump.

Then there is the wildcard factor. Trump’s support could collapse next spring if he is convicted of federal crimes by a Washington, D.C. jury. Republican voters would face a stark choice: switch their support to someone who stands a better chance of beating Joe Biden rather than an actual convicted felon, or nah, just go with the felon.

Today, let’s review where things stand with Haley and assess whether she is a credible threat to Trump or is really just running for second place, perhaps to be his VP or another cabinet pick in a Trump presidency. We’ll look at how she’s been hoping to thread the needle between challenging Trump and not alienating his base, how she’s faring in the polls, and where she stands on key issues.

Finally, we’ll speculate a bit on what a Nikki Haley presidency would mean for our country and democracy.

MAGA / not MAGA

Haley has a tricky problem that is part math, part politics. Within the GOP are the never-Trumpers, many of whom appreciate the more hard-charging, anti-Trump candidacy of former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie. But also with the party are what I call the Trump hesitants: people who voted for and genuinely like Trump, but may feel his best years are behind him and it’s time for someone new.

Haley is aiming more for the latter in her messaging and her policy positions. Having served as Trump’s UN Ambassador, it would likely seem ungrateful of her to attack her former boss, and it would alienate many who still adore him. That’s why in the same sentence, she can both praise Trump for being a great president but then warn of the consequences should he be the nominee.

Per Politico, Haley said this to a home crowd on Monday: “The truth is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him.” 

It’s a tack she has used frequently in her campaign speeches. 

“You know I’m right. Chaos follows him.”

The crowd laughed nervously, and some applauded, and the moment built. “You look at the recent polls: Donald Trump beats Biden by three to four points. I beat Biden by 10 to 13 points,” Haley said, with the crowd now cheering loudly.

Support for Haley has been steadily growing

Haley has been rising in the polls, especially after debate performances where she appeared to be the voice of moderation and traditional Republican principles, like continued aid to our allies. She even called out the GOP for exploding the deficit and the national debt while they were in power.

She fairly obliterated Vivek Ramaswamy during the debates, capturing out loud what many felt, namely that Ramaswamy was out of his league and didn’t have any experience in international affairs, something Haley had above all the others on the debate stage. When he came for her as “Dick Cheney in three inch heels” (though I suppose it’s possible he was referring to Ron DeSantis), she shot back, “They’re 5-inch heels and I don’t wear them unless I can run in them.” And when he brought up Haley’s adult daughter’s use of TikTok, she evoked the Will Smith Oscars moment, telling him to “leave my daughter out of your voice” before muttering, just loud enough for the cameras to catch, “You’re just scum.”

It was the right amount of pushback for the viewers who were still tuning in to the Trumpless GOP debates, who have consistently scored Haley high and as one of the winners. Adding to her steam is a steady and discernible rise in the polls, conducted regularly by the established and fairly accurate Des Moines Register, which show Haley is the only candidate to consistently go up in support while the others remain even or trending down.

Her campaign will receive a sizable lift this week with news that the Koch Network has endorsed her in its quest to stop Trump. Haley’s official endorsement by that group, led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch and represented by its flagship organization Americans For Prosperity (AFP), unlocks a war chest of money and an army of volunteers. Ron DeSantis had long presumed he would win the Koch endorsement, but his flagging candidacy continues to disappoint and fail to ignite, and his public spats with big corporations such as Disney have not gone over well with the pro-business, libertarian types at the Koch Network. 

“AFP Action is proud to throw our full support behind Nikki Haley, who offers America the opportunity to turn the page on the current political era, to win the Republican primary and defeat Joe Biden next November,” declared a memo from AFP. “Haley will have the full weight and scope of AFP Action’s unmatched grassroots army and resources to help her earn the support of Americans to become the next President of the United States of America.”

Traditional Republican values are still a threat to millions

There’s something called the “Overton Window” that is worth bringing up at this point. It marks the range of policies that form our current political discourse. And it has moved solidly to the right. This is largely because those on the left are busy worrying about existential threats to our democracy, such as rampant election denialism, openly authoritarian plans for a Trump presidency, a steady rollback of individual rights and freedoms by SCOTUS, and Christian Nationalism ensconced in the highest offices of our government.

It’s why traditional conservatives such as former Rep. Liz Cheney and more currently Nikki Haley seem more acceptable to Democrats than they would have seven years ago.

It’s important to remember that Haley backs some of the most extreme positions of the right and would continue the erosion of civil liberties and freedoms while undermining the social safety net for millions.

Haley recently came out in favor of the six-week abortion ban in her home state of South Carolina. She hides behind the idea of letting “the people” decide this issue state-by-state, knowing full well that the “people” often do not get a fair chance to elect their desired representatives and that MAGA extremists control the legislatures across red state America.

She has also said clearly that she would target “entitlements”—meaning Social Security and Medicaid—if president. “Any candidate that tells you they’re not going to go after Social Security and Medicare is not being serious,” Haley said during the last GOP presidential debate.

Points for honesty and directness, I suppose, but a really terrible idea for the tens of millions who would be impacted. (A rise in the wage cut-off for paying into these programs and a cut to benefits for high income earners would keep Social Security solvent, for example.)

President Haley?

It is more than idle conjecture at this point to ask what a Haley Presidency would mean for the U.S. While Donald Trump is the commanding favorite among GOP voters, that could change rapidly if he is convicted by a federal grand jury in April of next year. It’s also conceivable that Haley could perform well in Iowa and New Hampshire and even come back to win her home state of South Carolina, especially if other candidates drop out. Even a strong second place finish there would keep her a viable alternative to Trump.

For independents and Republicans who dislike Biden and the Democrats and want the “old” GOP back, Haley presents a path that no other contender does. That is likely why the Koch Network just endorsed her and why she has been careful not to openly attack Trump, letting Chris Christie do most of that. If Trump collapses in the spring due to his legal travails, she would be in a position to take up the GOP mantle.

But what would a Haley presidency look like? In many ways, Haley would be awful, but the kind of awful we were more used to under Bush/Cheney. There isn’t much indication that she would, for example, refuse to concede the election if she lost, that she would pull us out of NATO, that she would use the Insurrection Act to put down civil protests, that she would go after her political enemies using the Justice Department, or that she would dismantle the administrative state as we know it. Those are all part of the plan under Trump, which is already a terrifying prospect. But under Haley they would be unlikely.

What does seem more likely? Haley would still have to grant a lot of power to MAGA extremists in order to keep them happy, much as we saw in the House under former Speaker McCarthy. This would come in the form of “culture wars” over abortion, trans medical care, “Critical Race Theory” in schools, and health mandates. She would continue the appointment of Federalist Society judges and justices, who could then greenlight the further erosion of abortion rights, voting rights and the power of regulators to keep our food and drugs safe and our environment clean. 

A Haley presidency likely would be a disaster for our fight against climate change and would weaken the progress made under Biden for worker rights and unions. We would probably see the reimposition of more draconian measures against migrants. And on the economic front, we’d almost certainly see another huge tax break for the wealthy, further exacerbating economic inequality and poverty. That is, after all, why the Koch Network wants her in office.

So, yeah, not good. 

On the bright side, Haley would still be far better than either Trump or DeSantis on the question of democracy and the value of Western alliances. The U.S. would not tumble into an unrecognizable dystopian state under a Haley administration, at least not rapidly. So among the possible futures out there, a “President Haley” is survivable, especially were the Democrats to regain the House and have a strong say over budgets and oversight.

None of this matters, of course, if Trump remains the GOP’s top candidate and wins the nomination this summer despite all his indictments and trials. But given that it is, at least in my mind, far more likely than not that Trump will be convicted, and that many in the GOP will then fret that he will be unelectable, it is very much worth considering what is behind Door Number 2.