The lessons Haley teaches
In Iowa, 49 percent of Republican caucusgoers backed someone other than Donald Trump. In the New Hampshire primary, the non-Trump vote was 46 percent. In South Carolina, the state's former governor, Nikki Haley, won the backing of 4 in 10 voters.
Those dissenters are not enough to stop Trump. Barring some unforeseen calamity — say a major health or legal setback — the former president will be the Republican nominee for the third straight election.
But all of the headlines about Trump's triumphs miss a crucial point: The primaries have revealed deep divisions in Republican ranks and highlighted serious weaknesses that could hobble Trump in November.
“I'm an accountant,” Haley asserted after the South Carolina vote. “I know 40 percent is not 50 percent, but I also know 40 percent is not some tiny group. There are huge numbers in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative.”
Of course, Biden has serious flaws of his own — 86% of the voters surveyed recently by ABC said he was too old to be president. And most of the Republicans who disdain Trump now will probably vote for him eventually. But the election is likely to be very close, and if even a small fraction of the voters who abandoned Trump in the primaries fail to back him in November, they could help give Biden a second term.
“What is Nikki Haley doing?” asked The Wall Street Journal. “The answer is clear enough: demonstrating the inconvenient fact that a sizable portion of the Republican primary electorate isn't on board with another Donald Trump nomination, no matter how inevitable it seems.”
“The very voters who support Nikki are the ones that Trump needs in the general election,” Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire GOP party chairman, told the Washington Post. “It's Trump's failure to make those people comfortable with him. … That's his problem, and that's his responsibility.”
Exit polls in South Carolina pinpoint who Cullen is talking about and what matters to them. As in other states, education and income were key variables: 53 percent of college grads supported Haley, and voters making over $100,000 are split evenly.
The abortion issue was a critical asset for Haley, who identifies as “pro-life” but advocates for a more compassionate approach toward women faced with an unwanted pregnancy. Of those polled, 44 percent said they oppose a federal law banning “most or all abortions nationwide,” and 3 out of 5 of those voters backed Haley.
Haley attracted 60 percent of independents, 73 percent of moderates and liberals and 81 percent of South Carolinians who accept the fact that Biden won the last election.
In a particularly telling result, 17 percent said that choosing a candidate with the “right temperament” was the most important factor in their decision, and virtually all of those voters — 96 percent — picked Haley.
Trump has effectively used his legal troubles to solidify his base, citing his indictments as proof that the “Deep State” is out to get him — and them. But the four criminal cases and 91 felony charges lodged against Trump are hurting him with less loyal and more realityminded voters.
After the primary, 36 percent of voters told exit pollsters that if Trump were convicted of a crime, they would no longer consider him “fit to be president.”
An almost identical number said they'd be “dissatisfied” with Trump as the nominee, and 1 in 5 said they would never vote for him in November.
Haley has hammered Trump for focusing on his core supporters, calling him a certain loser in November. “If you're running for president, you're supposed to be bringing people in,” she said at a campaign event. “It's a story of addition. You don't push people out of your club.”
The Haley campaign has given Biden forces a clear manual for undercutting Trump in the fall: Focus on better- educated, higher income voters, often living in the suburbs, using abortion as a wedge issue and emphasizing Trump's mercurial and dangerous personality.