How the primary system has changed over the last few decades? Introducing the story of Nikki Haley, whose campaign against Trump in New Hampshire is over
You were just a few days away from voting for Christie, and now your vote is up for grabs, because your candidate abandoned you. What is their willingness to make a deal? They can live with her, so I think they are going to settle for her. But are they going to cast a vote for someone who is not as anti-Trump as they would like because it’s the only chance they have to beat Trump?
New Hampshire represents Haley’s best and possibly last chance for a truly strong performance against Trump. Independent voters in the state are allowed to vote in the GOP primary and they are more moderate than the electorate.
In September, you wrote that it’s hard to find a campaign trying to connect with citizens and make their presence known in communities. In New Hampshire, might that be the case? Over the last few decades, how has the primary system changed? I know there are two questions, but I wanted your take on them.
Scala: I would say, OK, since I wrote that of the campaigns out there, I think Haley was trying to make the most strides in building local organization. I did see a couple of Trump canvassers this week. The difference between Haley and this time is that local organizations would have started months earlier than they did this time around.
He explained the delegate math that the race is over. “I mean, even if Nikki Haley can win in New Hampshire, she’ll still have a real uphill slog. She must win her home state of South Carolina at the end of February.
The deck is stacked against her, says Ben Ginsberg, a retired Republican attorney who is a leading expert on the nominating process.
“If you look there was a poll that came out today: Trump is down by 7 points,” she said, pausing long enough for the crowd to begin to clap. But she had to clarify. “Well, this is against Joe Biden, by the way. Trump is down by 7 points. I beat Biden.
“Do you want to be scared in November or not?” she asks, at the end of her speech. Do you want your children to be proud in November? Then let’s do it.”
Nikki Haley, the Most Electable Democratic Candidate in New Hampshire, and how she’s motivated to move the country forward
Haley and her allies have spent more than $30 million on ads in New Hampshire. According to an NPR analysis of data from the Ad Impact tracking firm, more than five million was spent over the past week. Trump and his allies have spent about half as much.
“So now we have the chance to fix the election in our entire country.” he says. “Nikki is the only one who can beat Donald Trump to move America forward.”
That is, he said, “If enough Republicans and independents get a sense of sanity back and are less interested in drama and just pettiness. We do not like pettiness. And that’s what Nikki Haley would take away from where we are today.”
Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary could be one of the last chances for a truly competitive race for the Republican nomination. The only major candidate left challenging former President Donald Trump is the one that was nominated in the second primary, and it’s Haley.
A couple of days earlier at Grill 603 in Milford, N.H., the former South Carolina governor delivered her now-familiar pitch that she is the most electable Republican in the race.
It’s not clear which poll she was referring to, though she was talking about a general election result. There aren’t any public polls showing her ahead of Trump in New Hampshire. Haley tried to connect one on one with potential supporters at many events leading up to the primary.
From the beginning, I have said that I wanted to be strong in Iowa. When asked about her path to victory, Haley replied that she felt like we did that.