Many Republicans have declared Trump the presumptive winner of the Republican primaries. They may have spoken too soon. New Hampshire opened a victory path for Nikki Haley.
Before I explain why Trump is by no means the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, let me make one thing clear: I support neither him nor his only remaining primary opponent, Nikki Haley. Trump lives in the past, not the future where a president’s eyes must be. I also worry that his desire for revenge over the 2020 election will consume his presidency—and his rants insulting his primary opponent are getting tedious.
Nikki Haley is not a better option. She is a neocon, which means that she wants the same big, socialist welfare state that the left wants, and she wants a return to American global military activism.
She was a competent governor and a competent ambassador. Her big problem as a presidential candidate is not on that side—she would definitely know how to run America if given the chance. No, her problem is on the policy side: while she is a highly competent government executive who knows how to run a complex administration, she has never left any policy footprints of any significance that make her stand out from the crowd.
In other words, she has no ideological backbone, which means that she will listen to whoever catches her attention.
I also question her political stamina. She never finished her second term as governor of South Carolina, and she prematurely quit her job as United States Ambassador to the UN. As I note in my review of her, she claimed she had “given it all.” If you say that about being governor or ambassador, either of which is a breeze of a job compared to the presidency, then do you really have what it takes to be president?
Unfortunately, we cannot count Haley out. Despite a weak ideological profile and an affinity for quitting important jobs ahead of time, Nikki Haley may very well be on track to become America’s next president. Contrary to what many Trump supporters want to believe, the New Hampshire primary gave Haley’s presidential campaign a much-needed vitamin injection. Her loss was far from as decisive as many commentators expected; if anything, she is a more serious challenger to Trump today than she has been since she emerged a year ago as a presidential candidate.
Or, in the words of The Hill, a Washington, DC, based news outlet focused on Congress and politics:
In Iowa, nearly half of those who backed GOP candidate Nikki Haley said they would vote for President Biden over Trump in a general election. Republican voters in New Hampshire expressed concerns about Trump as well, with one CBS News poll showing 47 percent of Republican primary voters saying they believe Trump would be unfit to serve as president if he were convicted in one of his four upcoming trials.
The path to victory for Nikki Haley emerged in the New Hampshire primary. It gave us an insightful view of how the two candidates would perform in a general election. The reason is in the formal construction of those primaries: they are open elections, meaning that, alongside registered Republicans or Democrats (in their primary election), voters with no declared party affiliation could vote if they registered as a Republican/Democrat on-site.
For this reason, New Hampshire offered a glimpse of how non-Republicans would respond to Haley or Trump as the Republican presidential candidate. That response is not good news for Trump. Reports ABC News:
Forty-six percent [of the voters] reported being registered as “undeclared” rather than Republican vs. a previous record of 45% in 2012. Haley won those undeclared voters by a wide margin, 65-34%.
In other words, Trump has much more of a challenge than Haley does with winning over independent voters in the general election. Even more of a worry for Trump is the fact that independents can help Haley beat him in the primaries. In addition to New Hampshire, there are nine states where undeclared voters can participate in a party’s primary, given that they register with that party on site.
The significance of this so-called semi-open primary model varies from state to state. Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Oklahoma are examples of states in this category; they are also mid-sized states with a reasonable amount of delegates to win.
In a state like Oklahoma, Republicans do not have much to worry about from independent voters. They dominate voter registration and they lean conservative, which means they will in all likelihood vote for Trump.
Things are different in Massachusetts, where more than six in ten voters are unaffiliated. They outnumber Republicans by a lot: there are 750 unaffiliated voters for every 100 registered Republicans. Suppose half of them decide to participate in the Republican primary. Suppose also that they break for Haley like they did in New Hampshire. If Haley gets 43 out of every 100 Republican votes and 64% of the unaffiliated or independent votes (the same shares as in New Hampshire), she ends up trouncing Trump with 50% more votes than him.
Again, this is just a quick, hypothetical example, but it shows the predicament that the former president finds himself in.
North Carolina does not offer the same challenge for Trump, but the power of the independent vote should not be ignored there either. Voters are essentially split into three equally sized groups: Democrats (33%), Republicans (30%), and Unaffiliated (36%). It will be tougher here for Haley to defeat Trump by relying on independent voters, but if her campaign has enough momentum on March 5th, she could win the ‘Tar Heel State.’
In addition to the semi-open primary states, there are 20 states with fully open primaries. On the one hand, voters can only vote in one party’s primary; on the other hand, they can choose whichever party’s primary they want to participate in.
This group of states presents Trump with a real problem. Since the Democrat party is doing everything in its power to avoid any contests in its own primaries—effectively coronating Biden as their nominee—their voters in these 20 states can take their primary votes to the Republican side instead. If they join the independents, they can outnumber Republicans; if both Democrats and independents break for Haley, she can win enough states and delegates to the Republican convention this summer to secure the nomination for president.
Those are, of course, big “ifs”. Many factors can upset the primary race and throw it in either direction. As always in American politics, the money always matters; as a glimpse of just how important money is, Reuters has a story on the aftermath of the New Hampshire primary:
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s campaign said it had raised $1 million since Donald Trump issued a warning to her donors, even as at least one prominent benefactor of her turned off the taps, saying Trump was now the de facto party nominee. Trump issued a threat to donors on Wednesday night to stop funding Haley as he seeks to knock her out of the race before the next major primary race, in South Carolina on Feb. 24.
The threat that Reuters refers to was published by Trump on Truth Social. The last sentence has been floating around the media as if it was all he said; it was not. As usual, the former president’s tone is unnecessarily raw and conflict-triggering, but his point about the donors is nevertheless worth reading in its entirety:
Again, it is easy to lose sight of the former president’s point in the context of an insult-infested rant, but it is nevertheless worth noting what he says about the donor class. Those who write checks above a certain size for Haley are expressing expectations of favors to come. It works the same for every campaign, Trump’s included.
To take one example—strictly hypothetical, of course… The military-industrial complex could write a check to a certain presidential candidate and help him or her (ahem!) get elected. When ‘their’ candidate wins, the military-industrial complex will expect the president to convince Congress to drastically increase spending on new military equipment.
Trump clearly believes that he is going to win the primary elections and then take on Joe Biden without having to rely on anyone who has written a sizable check to the Haley campaign. Given that it costs about $1 billion (yes, with a ‘b’!) to run a successful presidential campaign, this is a dicey move by Trump.
More than that, though, his aforementioned statement on Truth Social shows the important role that money plays in politics. Trump is apparently convinced that the only thing that keeps Haley going is the stack of checks from donors with a lot of money. Until her campaign has done its required filings with the federal government for the first quarter of this year, we won’t know if he is correct, or if Haley’s campaign tells us the truth when they state that they raised $1 million in small-donor contributions after Trump’s outburst on Truth Social.
Either way, it is true that money is essential for any credible primary candidate. If Haley continues to raise good money, she will stay in the race into all those states where both independents and Democrats can vote in the Republican primary. I would not be surprised if this is the prospect that worries Trump: it is entirely possible that his campaign’s internal polls show that he, unlike Haley, is having difficulties reaching independents.
In addition to shifts in fundraising, there is another big factor that can upset the course of the primary: the Democratic Party’s devious political strategy behind protecting Joe Biden from primary opponents. There is no doubt that the incumbent president is mentally unfit to be in charge of either the White House or his re-election campaign. This bothers many Democrat voters, but the party leadership and its influential sponsors are holding on to Biden—for now. They are hoping that the prospect of a second term with Biden will help steer the Republican nomination process in the direction they want, namely to a Trump victory.
According to this strategy, once Trump is the presumptive Republican primary winner, the Democratic Party leadership will declare that Biden is ‘retiring’ due to ‘poor health’ or some similarly innocuous reason. At that point, they can choose another candidate, a young, fresh face with a wind of newfound enthusiasm in his or her sails.
This is the scenario that Republicans should fear the most. If we get there, Trump will—by his own volition—come across as the nasty, bitter old man whose eyes are on the past. The Democrat, by contrast, will be portrayed as offering a forward-looking vision of a bright future.
Again, this is a scenario that the Democratic Party leadership would want. Ironically, it is not what their voters envision. They are not sitting around waiting for Biden to maybe retire at some point; just like many Republicans, they want America to have a new leadership. Since the Democratic Party is doing everything it can to shut down any primary challenges to Biden, their voters are only more inclined to cross over, where possible, and vote for Haley in the Republican primaries.
If she defeats Trump, then the same Democrats can again cross over and vote for her instead of Biden in the general election. If Biden is out of the picture, then all bets are off.
Whatever happens in the next few weeks, there is no shortage of drama and political entertainment. Get out the popcorn and enjoy the show!
Sven R Larson, Ph.D., is an economics writer for the European Conservative, where he publishes regular analyses of the European and American economies. He has worked as a staff economist for think tanks and as an advisor to political campaigns. He is the author of several academic papers and books. His writings concentrate on the welfare state, how it causes economic stagnation, and the reforms needed to reduce the negative impact of big government. On Twitter, he is @S_R_Larson
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Trump the Winner? Not So Fast
Photo: Michael Candelori / Shutterstock.com
Before I explain why Trump is by no means the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, let me make one thing clear: I support neither him nor his only remaining primary opponent, Nikki Haley. Trump lives in the past, not the future where a president’s eyes must be. I also worry that his desire for revenge over the 2020 election will consume his presidency—and his rants insulting his primary opponent are getting tedious.
Nikki Haley is not a better option. She is a neocon, which means that she wants the same big, socialist welfare state that the left wants, and she wants a return to American global military activism.
Haley is also opportunistic and impressionable. Here is how I described her a year ago:
In other words, she has no ideological backbone, which means that she will listen to whoever catches her attention.
I also question her political stamina. She never finished her second term as governor of South Carolina, and she prematurely quit her job as United States Ambassador to the UN. As I note in my review of her, she claimed she had “given it all.” If you say that about being governor or ambassador, either of which is a breeze of a job compared to the presidency, then do you really have what it takes to be president?
Unfortunately, we cannot count Haley out. Despite a weak ideological profile and an affinity for quitting important jobs ahead of time, Nikki Haley may very well be on track to become America’s next president. Contrary to what many Trump supporters want to believe, the New Hampshire primary gave Haley’s presidential campaign a much-needed vitamin injection. Her loss was far from as decisive as many commentators expected; if anything, she is a more serious challenger to Trump today than she has been since she emerged a year ago as a presidential candidate.
Or, in the words of The Hill, a Washington, DC, based news outlet focused on Congress and politics:
The path to victory for Nikki Haley emerged in the New Hampshire primary. It gave us an insightful view of how the two candidates would perform in a general election. The reason is in the formal construction of those primaries: they are open elections, meaning that, alongside registered Republicans or Democrats (in their primary election), voters with no declared party affiliation could vote if they registered as a Republican/Democrat on-site.
For this reason, New Hampshire offered a glimpse of how non-Republicans would respond to Haley or Trump as the Republican presidential candidate. That response is not good news for Trump. Reports ABC News:
In other words, Trump has much more of a challenge than Haley does with winning over independent voters in the general election. Even more of a worry for Trump is the fact that independents can help Haley beat him in the primaries. In addition to New Hampshire, there are nine states where undeclared voters can participate in a party’s primary, given that they register with that party on site.
The significance of this so-called semi-open primary model varies from state to state. Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Oklahoma are examples of states in this category; they are also mid-sized states with a reasonable amount of delegates to win.
In a state like Oklahoma, Republicans do not have much to worry about from independent voters. They dominate voter registration and they lean conservative, which means they will in all likelihood vote for Trump.
Things are different in Massachusetts, where more than six in ten voters are unaffiliated. They outnumber Republicans by a lot: there are 750 unaffiliated voters for every 100 registered Republicans. Suppose half of them decide to participate in the Republican primary. Suppose also that they break for Haley like they did in New Hampshire. If Haley gets 43 out of every 100 Republican votes and 64% of the unaffiliated or independent votes (the same shares as in New Hampshire), she ends up trouncing Trump with 50% more votes than him.
Again, this is just a quick, hypothetical example, but it shows the predicament that the former president finds himself in.
North Carolina does not offer the same challenge for Trump, but the power of the independent vote should not be ignored there either. Voters are essentially split into three equally sized groups: Democrats (33%), Republicans (30%), and Unaffiliated (36%). It will be tougher here for Haley to defeat Trump by relying on independent voters, but if her campaign has enough momentum on March 5th, she could win the ‘Tar Heel State.’
In addition to the semi-open primary states, there are 20 states with fully open primaries. On the one hand, voters can only vote in one party’s primary; on the other hand, they can choose whichever party’s primary they want to participate in.
This group of states presents Trump with a real problem. Since the Democrat party is doing everything in its power to avoid any contests in its own primaries—effectively coronating Biden as their nominee—their voters in these 20 states can take their primary votes to the Republican side instead. If they join the independents, they can outnumber Republicans; if both Democrats and independents break for Haley, she can win enough states and delegates to the Republican convention this summer to secure the nomination for president.
Those are, of course, big “ifs”. Many factors can upset the primary race and throw it in either direction. As always in American politics, the money always matters; as a glimpse of just how important money is, Reuters has a story on the aftermath of the New Hampshire primary:
The threat that Reuters refers to was published by Trump on Truth Social. The last sentence has been floating around the media as if it was all he said; it was not. As usual, the former president’s tone is unnecessarily raw and conflict-triggering, but his point about the donors is nevertheless worth reading in its entirety:
Again, it is easy to lose sight of the former president’s point in the context of an insult-infested rant, but it is nevertheless worth noting what he says about the donor class. Those who write checks above a certain size for Haley are expressing expectations of favors to come. It works the same for every campaign, Trump’s included.
To take one example—strictly hypothetical, of course… The military-industrial complex could write a check to a certain presidential candidate and help him or her (ahem!) get elected. When ‘their’ candidate wins, the military-industrial complex will expect the president to convince Congress to drastically increase spending on new military equipment.
Trump clearly believes that he is going to win the primary elections and then take on Joe Biden without having to rely on anyone who has written a sizable check to the Haley campaign. Given that it costs about $1 billion (yes, with a ‘b’!) to run a successful presidential campaign, this is a dicey move by Trump.
More than that, though, his aforementioned statement on Truth Social shows the important role that money plays in politics. Trump is apparently convinced that the only thing that keeps Haley going is the stack of checks from donors with a lot of money. Until her campaign has done its required filings with the federal government for the first quarter of this year, we won’t know if he is correct, or if Haley’s campaign tells us the truth when they state that they raised $1 million in small-donor contributions after Trump’s outburst on Truth Social.
Either way, it is true that money is essential for any credible primary candidate. If Haley continues to raise good money, she will stay in the race into all those states where both independents and Democrats can vote in the Republican primary. I would not be surprised if this is the prospect that worries Trump: it is entirely possible that his campaign’s internal polls show that he, unlike Haley, is having difficulties reaching independents.
In addition to shifts in fundraising, there is another big factor that can upset the course of the primary: the Democratic Party’s devious political strategy behind protecting Joe Biden from primary opponents. There is no doubt that the incumbent president is mentally unfit to be in charge of either the White House or his re-election campaign. This bothers many Democrat voters, but the party leadership and its influential sponsors are holding on to Biden—for now. They are hoping that the prospect of a second term with Biden will help steer the Republican nomination process in the direction they want, namely to a Trump victory.
According to this strategy, once Trump is the presumptive Republican primary winner, the Democratic Party leadership will declare that Biden is ‘retiring’ due to ‘poor health’ or some similarly innocuous reason. At that point, they can choose another candidate, a young, fresh face with a wind of newfound enthusiasm in his or her sails.
This is the scenario that Republicans should fear the most. If we get there, Trump will—by his own volition—come across as the nasty, bitter old man whose eyes are on the past. The Democrat, by contrast, will be portrayed as offering a forward-looking vision of a bright future.
Again, this is a scenario that the Democratic Party leadership would want. Ironically, it is not what their voters envision. They are not sitting around waiting for Biden to maybe retire at some point; just like many Republicans, they want America to have a new leadership. Since the Democratic Party is doing everything it can to shut down any primary challenges to Biden, their voters are only more inclined to cross over, where possible, and vote for Haley in the Republican primaries.
If she defeats Trump, then the same Democrats can again cross over and vote for her instead of Biden in the general election. If Biden is out of the picture, then all bets are off.
Whatever happens in the next few weeks, there is no shortage of drama and political entertainment. Get out the popcorn and enjoy the show!
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