Haley drawcard for women: I am not Trump

At a campaign event in eastern New Hampshire last week, Melinda Tourangeau was wearing a Nikki Haley button on her lapel and a smile on her face.

Tourangeau said she would be thrilled to cast a vote for Haley in Tuesday’s Republican primary. Just as important, she said, was she would not be voting for former president Donald Trump, as she had before.

“I had no choice. I had to subjugate my morals and ethics and his list of misogynistic … ,” said Tourangeau, a Republican, as her voice trailed off and smile faded.

Ask women who support Haley about Trump and that reaction becomes common. Voting for him is something they hope to never have to do again. If Trump does become the Republican nominee some are unsure what they will do.

Kathy Holland, of Sandown, New Hampshire, who voted for Trump in 2016, said if he’s the nominee this time, “I will write someone in.”

You see women at Haley’s small-scale rallies in Haleybranded shirts and hats, where they outnumber men. They like her background as a governor and UN ambassador, her tough national security stance and the fact that she’s a woman. And they like that she is not Trump.

Michelle Wright, of Rye, New Hampshire, now casts a critical eye back at the Trump years. “He likes to talk about himself like he was fantastic, but he wasn’t.”

Did she vote for him? “I did. I held my nose.”

PRESS ON

The hopes of Haley’s passionate cohort may be short-lived. Polls show Trump to be heavily favoured in Tuesday’s primary. Haley needs to keep it close to have a rationale for going forward, though she is expected to press on to her home state of South Carolina for its February 24 primary.

After Florida governor Ron DeSantis exited the race to become the Republican presidential nominee on Sunday, Haley was the only challenger to Trump remaining. She is trying to appeal to New Hampshire’s moderate Republicans and independents, who can vote in the primary, but faces steep odds.

“Trump is the only one who can unite the party, whereas Nikki Haley is the only one trying to tear the party down by playing footsies with Democrats and Never Trumpers to invade the primary,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign.

Trump is known for his denigrating and misogynistic comments towards women and has been accused numerous times of sexual misconduct, which he denies. He spent last week in a Manhattan court as a defendant in a civil defamation case involving a writer, E Jean Carroll, who claims Trump assaulted her.

Awaiting Haley at a restaurant in Epping, New Hampshire,

Carole Alfano said she did not want to talk about Trump. “I’m tired of the drama.” Alfano, who declined to give her age, said Haley’s candidacy excited her. “I want to see a woman president in my lifetime.”

Despite his history, Trump has shown little problem in attracting women voters. Hundreds can be found at his rallies. A University of New Hampshire/CNN poll showed that both candidates attract men and women in close to equal proportions, though Haley had a distinct 12 percentage point edge with college-educated voters.

Marie Bradley, 75, of Laconia, New Hampshire, said she plans to vote for Trump. She respects Haley’s credentials, she said, but views her as too much of a politician. “I love a strong woman. But she’s not the woman for our country,” she said.

While Haley quips about wearing high heels and quotes Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Thatcher on the campaign trail, she mostly stays away from overtly referring to her gender even though if elected, she would become America’s first woman president.

Trump dashed Hillary Clinton’s attempt to make history when he defeated the Democratic nominee in the 2016 presidential election. Haley may be the next woman to fall.

ABORTION

During Republican debates, Haley has chided male candidates for not knowing how to speak about the issue of abortion. But in New Hampshire with its large population of political moderates, abortion can be a tricky subject to navigate, and she has largely avoided it.

Elizabeth Childs, who attended an event in Seabrook, New Hampshire, said she was backing Haley even though she believes abortion should be legal. “I think Nikki has done a really good job of saying she’s pro-life herself for very personal reasons,” Childs said. “But she was very clear that we need to stop demonising women about this issue.”

Haley attempts to identify with her audiences in other ways, particularly when she refers to herself as “a wife of a combat veteran” and the mother of two children.

In New Hampshire, she has frequently spoken about her husband Michael, a major in the South Carolina National Guard, and his battle with post-traumatic stress disorder after returning home from a deployment in Afghanistan in 2012.

After a Haley event in Manchester last week, Holland of Sandown said she appreciated that Haley “understands the needs of the military and the plight of military families”.

In Seabrook on Sunday, the crowd that had come to see Haley cheered when told DeSantis had dropped out of the race. “He ran a great campaign,” Haley said. “For now, let me leave you with this: let the best woman win.”