For as long as Republicans have been running against Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential nominating contest, more than a few Trump critics have wondered why they don\u2019t go after him harder.<\/p>\n
Nikki Haley shows why.<\/p>\n
A new Washington Post-Monmouth University poll features a somewhat unsurprising top-line number: Trump leads Haley by 26 points, 58 percent to 32 percent, in South Carolina.<\/p>\n
But within the poll is a remarkable finding. Not only don\u2019t Haley\u2019s home-state GOP primary voters want to elect her as president, they don\u2019t even seem to like her much anymore.<\/p>\n
Haley was a popular governor of South Carolina, with polls generally showing about 8 in 10 Republicans approved of her. Polls of the GOP primary electorate in September and November showed her popularity was holding up pretty well.<\/p>\n
Now that she is Trump\u2019s lone remaining obstacle \u2014 and as she has stepped up her criticisms of him to include things like his mental sharpness \u2014 Republicans have far less regard for her.<\/p>\n
The Post-Monmouth poll shows her home state\u2019s GOP primary voters are now split on her, with 45 percent having a favorable opinion and 41 percent having an unfavorable one. (A Quinnipiac University poll this week showed Republicans nationally were similarly split.)<\/p>\n
Since the same Post-Monmouth South Carolina poll was conduced in September:<\/p>\n
Haley\u2019s favorable rating among \u201cstrong\u201d Republicans has plunged from 43 points positive (65-22) to 10 points negative (38-48).<\/span>Among MAGA supporters, she has gone from plus-26 (56-30) to minus-32 (26-58).<\/span>While 52 percent of Trump voters liked her in September, she is down to 22 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s one thing for Haley to overwhelmingly rely on independent voters in these GOP primaries \u2014 a setup that makes winning a Republican nomination virtually impossible, since independents often can\u2019t vote in these contests and are a distinct minority when they can. It\u2019s quite another for the Republicans to turn against you personally.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the kind of thing that suggests you won\u2019t have much of a future in the party even beyond the 2024 nominating contest.<\/p>\n This is a familiar tale by now. Trump\u2019s strongest GOP critics will often see their image numbers among Republicans crater, and they\u2019ll often soon head for the exits. Think: John McCain, Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney. Many of them wound up more popular among Democrats than Republicans.<\/p>\n Haley has not targeted Trump nearly as hard as these Republicans \u2014 she has been reluctant to engage on Trump\u2019s legal problems, for instance \u2014 but she has still paid a distinct price, apparently by virtue of standing in his way and being increasingly critical.<\/p>\n And significantly, this is among the voters who Haley assured us just last week, after the New Hampshire primary, know her best and wouldn\u2019t fall for Trump\u2019s attacks.<\/p>\n \u201cThe great people of South Carolina know I cut their taxes,\u201d Haley assured. \u201cThey know I signed the toughest illegal immigration bill in the country. They know we passed voter ID and tort reform and ethics reform. And they know we moved 35,000 people from welfare to work. Every time I\u2019ve run for office in South Carolina, I\u2019ve beaten the political establishment.\u201d<\/p>\n Haley\u2019s political decline within the GOP is particularly notable given that she once demonstrated an unusual knack for navigating the Trump era.<\/p>\n She removed the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House grounds and, as Trump\u2019s U.N. ambassador, occasionally distanced herself from Trump and his White House \u2014 all without alienating the right. She was popular among both Republicans and Democrats in her ambassador\u2019s role.<\/p>\n If there was someone who might theoretically have been able to appeal to Republicans who weren\u2019t sold on Trump, as well as more middle-of-the road voters, there was a good argument she was that candidate.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not how it\u2019s turning out.<\/p>\n And the fact that she apparently can\u2019t even do it in her home state speaks volumes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n For as long as Republicans have been running against Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential nominating contest, more than a few Trump critics have wondered why they don\u2019t go after him harder. Nikki Haley shows why. A new Washington Post-Monmouth University poll features a somewhat unsurprising top-line number: Trump leads Haley by 26 points, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}