In the final days leading up to the election, Donald Trump’s team is trying to discredit Nikki Haley’s bid for the presidency.
Television advertisements airing attacks on Haley are costing the former president’s campaign millions of dollars. His supporters and influential people on social media are stepping up their attacks on her. On Friday night, during his Iowa speech, Trump ripped on her more severely than he had at any moment in the campaign thus far.
It’s a dramatic change of direction nine days before the Iowa caucuses.
Following a year of nearly nonstop attacks on Ron DeSantis, the Trump campaign has decided that Haley needs more of their resources than DeSantis does. Those who support Trump see the former governor of South Carolina, who was also Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, as the final hurdle to his candidature.
President Trump has long indicated that he would target the candidate ranked second, according to Trump aide Jason Miller, who spoke to AWN. “Rob DeSanctimonious’s campaign is in the last stages and his support is dwindling, so now it’s Nikki Haley’s chance to shine.”
The former president is now widely considered the front-runner for the Republican nomination, with a lead in the polls that is in the double digits. But Trump’s supporters are beginning to think that Haley could gain momentum for the New Hampshire primary the following week if she finishes second in the Iowa caucuses on January 15. According to Trump advisors, the goal is to limit her support in New Hampshire, where she is Trump’s main opponent in the polls.
Haley’s national and early state polling numbers have been steadily rising since her highly acclaimed debate performances in the autumn, and she has kept making progress in both areas. In several national and early-state surveys, she is now in second place, surpassing DeSantis, who was long considered as Trump’s most formidable opponent.
Ads attacking Haley in New Hampshire ran for the first time this week by Trump’s campaign, which claimed that Haley was against the president’s plan to build a wall along the southern border. A different ad in the state is airing from MAGA Inc., an affiliated super PAC, which Haley has denied, saying that it misrepresents her record as governor of South Carolina and accuses her of backing a petrol tax increase during her time in office. Combined, the two groups will spend $4.5 million on ads criticising Haley. Commercials aimed at DeSantis are not airing at the moment either.
Additionally, Trump is addressing Haley head-on. During his two rallies in Iowa on Friday night, Trump criticised his former U.N. ambassador for her highly criticised response on the origins of the Civil War and accused her of being a “globalist” controlled by Wall Street funders.
Trump made the claim that Nikki Haley is a globalist and that she has spent her entire career beholden to contributors from the establishment and advocates of open immigration. The world is something she enjoys. This country is important to me.
Her witty asides, such “how did the Civil War start?,” are sure to be entertaining. “Well, it had to do with the government,” Trump added, imitating Haley. The correct term is slavery. You will learn about Nikki, which is something I never intended to do.
The Trump campaign’s habit of routinely hitting DeSantis in emails sent to reporters with the subject line “Kiss of Death” is another sign of the pivot. The “Kiss of Death” emails, however, started targeting Haley towards the end of last month.
Even Trump’s massive online base is starting to focus on Haley. Steve Bannon, who served as Trump’s chief strategist, told AWN that his “War Room” podcast, which is popular among Trump’s diehard fans, will now focus only on Haley.
If the donor class wanted to derail Trump and MAGA, Nikki was always the one they wanted, according to Bannon.
Twitter user Alex Bruesewitz, who is pro-Trump, has started attacking Haley on his account. For example, on Friday, he compared Haley to former secretary of state and Trump opponent Hillary Clinton in a meme he shared on X. Over the past year, Bruesewitz has focused primarily on attacking DeSantis. In one interview, he stated his intention to keep going after the governor of Florida and his allies for “sport.”
As Haley’s popularity grows and DeSantis’s declines, Bruesewitz has stated that he is concentrating more on Haley.
The amount of ammunition that has not been shot yet is substantial, according to Bruesewitz.
There has been an upsurge in Trump assaults, which Haley’s campaign has noticed. Olivia Perez-Cubas, a spokesman for Haley’s campaign, sent a fact-check regarding her immigration record to reporters in an effort to head off any attacks from the former president before his talks in Iowa.
With their comments, Perez-Cubas implied that Trump must be experiencing the same Nikki momentum as they are. “If not, why would they waste millions of dollars on defamatory advertisements against her? It’s obvious that Trump and Nikki are the only two candidates in this campaign.
Even while Trump’s team has promised to keep looking for ways to attack DeSantis, some of his supporters believe the governor of Florida can win over more of the former president’s supporters. Trump maintained his mocking usage of the “DeSanctus” moniker he had bestowed upon him in his Friday addresses.
At least a little personality is required, Trump said Ron. There isn’t much character, and that’s still an issue. Charming foreign leaders requires a certain type of charisma.
But the main target has shifted, with Trump and his MAGA supporters seizing on everything — from Haley’s Civil War remarks to a clip this week of her in an Iowa PBS interview saying “you change personalities” between early states.
Haley was responding to a question about whether she would change the order of the GOP nominating contests, as President Joe Biden did on the Democratic side this year. Haley emphasised that they would prefer things to remain unchanged. It begins in Iowa. You transform into someone else. You go into New Hampshire, and they continue it on.”
The slip was just another chance for Trump’s followers to pile on. New Hampshire-based MAGA Inc. spokesperson Karoline Leavitt reposted the clip on X, writing: “Nikki Haley just opened the door to 2nd place for [Chris Christie] in New Hampshire.”