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      Why Haley Is Rising Among the Rivals to Trump

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      She has gained with educated and relatively moderate Republicans and independents, but that is also a big liability in today’s G.O.P.Nikki Haley is No. 2 in polling in New Hampshire.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesIf you dozed off while following the Republican primary, I wouldn’t blame you. But it might be worth perking up for a moment.Over the last few months, Nikki Haley has gained enough in the polls that she might be on the verge of surpassing Ron DeSantis as Donald J. Trump’s principal rival in the race.With Ms. Haley still a full 50 percentage points behind Mr. Trump in national polls, her ascent doesn’t exactly endanger his path to the nomination. If anything, she is a classic factional candidate — someone who’s built a resilient base of support by catering to the wishes of a minority of the party. So if you were reading this only on the off chance that Mr. Trump might be in jeopardy, you can doze off again.But even if it’s still hard to imagine a Haley win, her rise may nonetheless make this race more interesting, especially in the early states, which will begin to vote in six weeks. Ms. Haley is now neck-and-neck with Mr. DeSantis in Iowa, a state he is counting on to reverse a yearlong downward spiral in the polls. She’s well ahead of Mr. DeSantis in New Hampshire and South Carolina, two states where a moderate South Carolinian like her ought to fare relatively well.Ms. Haley finds herself in an intriguing position. Even without any additional gains over the next 40 days, a result in line with today’s Iowa polling could be enough for her to claim a moral victory heading into New Hampshire and potentially even clear the field of her major rivals. Mr. DeSantis would be hard pressed to continue in the race if he finished 27 points behind Mr. Trump, as the polls show today. And Chris Christie would face pressure to withdraw from the race or risk enabling Mr. Trump, just as he did at this same time and place in 2016. If the stars align, it’s not inconceivable that Ms. Haley could become highly competitive in New Hampshire, where today she and Mr. Christie already combine for around 30 percent of the vote.When primary season began, it seemed unlikely that Ms. Haley would have a chance to surpass Ron DeSantis.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesThe idea that Ms. Haley might win New Hampshire might seem far-fetched but, historically, much crazier things have happened. Late surges in Iowa and New Hampshire are so common that they’re closer to being the norm than the exception. Of course, there’s still a chance that such a surge could belong to Mr. DeSantis, who has earned important Iowa endorsements from the prominent evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats and Gov. Kim Reynolds. It’s also possible that nothing really changes in the next 40 days. But there’s no reason to be terribly surprised if Ms. Haley simply keeps gaining. She’ll have the resources to compete, especially having recently earned the support of the political network founded by the Koch brothers.For a precedent, John McCain is probably the best analogy. By the numbers, George W. Bush is a strong comparison to Mr. Trump. Both held 60 percent or more of the Republican vote nationwide and started with a seemingly comfortable lead of around 45-15 in New Hampshire. At first, Mr. McCain did not seem to be Mr. Bush’s strongest challenger. But in the end, he won New Hampshire, 49-30, cleared the field, and ultimately won seven states.Winning seven states would be very impressive for Ms. Haley, just as it was for Mr. McCain. It would also represent a fairly marked shift from today’s currently uncompetitive Republican race. (Mr. Trump would probably win all 50 states if we had a national primary today.) But to state the obvious: Winning seven states would leave her much further from winning the nomination than it probably sounds. And while caveats about Mr. Trump’s legal challenges are worth flagging here, it’s probably something pretty close to the best case for Ms. Haley.That’s because she has gained traction only by catering to the needs of a party wing, especially one that’s dissatisfied with the party’s front-runner — in other words, an archetypal factional candidate.These kind of candidates are a common feature of contested primaries, as even the most formidable front-runners struggle to appeal to every element of a diverse party. George W. Bush, for instance, was one of the strongest primary candidates on record, but as a Southern evangelical conservative he was always an imperfect fit for Northern moderates, leaving a natural opening in 2000 for a candidate who appealed to that faction: Mr. McCain.If you look back, you can probably think of a factional candidate in almost every presidential primary cycle. Bernie Sanders, John Kasich, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Howard Dean, Pat Buchanan and Jesse Jackson are only the beginning of a very long list of candidates who gained a foothold by offering an often-but-not-always disgruntled faction exactly what it wanted.If you haven’t noticed, all these factional candidates lost their races. That’s not a coincidence. It’s very challenging to make a powerful appeal to a faction and somehow still become the favorite of the rest of the party. It’s not impossible to pull off, but it takes a special set of circumstances — like an unpopular front-runner, or a faction that’s so large and popular as to blur the distinction between a mere “faction” and the “mainstream,” like the conservative movement in the 1970s.But if factional candidates usually lose, under the right circumstances they can have a big advantage in gaining a toehold in the race. By definition, these candidates have a powerful appeal to a narrow but often still quite sizable base of support. Broadly appealing candidates, on the other hand, can struggle to become anyone’s favorite — especially if there’s already a strong, broadly appealing front-runner like a Mr. Trump or Mr. Bush.Just consider how often factional favorites outlast more conventional, mainstream candidates who, in many respects, seem to be stronger candidates. Was Jesse Jackson stronger than John Glenn in 1984? Was Rick Santorum vastly stronger than Tim Pawlenty in 2012? Probably not. In a hypothetical one-on-one matchup, Mr. Glenn and Mr. Pawlenty would have probably defeated the likes of Mr. Jackson and Mr. Santorum. But these losing mainstream candidates couldn’t find a distinct base in a race against a broadly appealing front-runner, whereas the factional candidates built resilient and insulated bases of support.The same can be said of Ms. Haley today. Is she a stronger candidate than Mr. DeSantis? It doesn’t seem so. A HarrisX/The Messenger poll shows Mr. DeSantis with a two-to-one lead over Ms. Haley if Mr. Trump dropped out of the race. But Ms. Haley appeals squarely to the relatively moderate, highly educated independents and Republicans who do not support Mr. Trump, giving her the inside path to a resilient base. It’s a base that, almost by definition, even Mr. Trump can’t touch.Mr. DeSantis, on the other hand, has done surprisingly little to appeal to the voters who dislike Mr. Trump. He’s running as an orthodox conservative — another Ted Cruz, except this time against a version of Mr. Trump with far stronger conservative credentials than the one who lost Iowa eight years ago. If Ms. Haley weren’t in the race, perhaps Mr. DeSantis would grudgingly win many of her supporters, but his transformation into a Cruz-like Republican is part of what created the space for a Ms. Haley in the first place.As with factional candidates before her, the same attributes that help Ms. Haley appeal to Mr. Trump’s detractors make her a poor fit for the rest of the party. Most Republicans agree with Mr. Trump on immigration, foreign policy, trade and other policies that distinguish Mr. Trump from his skeptics. This is a conservative, populist party. A moderate, establishment-backed candidate might have the path of least resistance to earning 25 percent of the vote in a race against a populist, conservative like Mr. Trump. But the path to 50 percent is far harder. More

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      DeSantis Takes Fight for Second Place to Nikki Haley’s Home State

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      After ignoring each other for much of the campaign, the two candidates now engage in near-daily attacks and have sparred with increasing intensity on the debate stage.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Friday swept through South Carolina, his rival Nikki Haley’s backyard, seeking to blunt the rise of the state’s former governor in the Republican primary while capitalizing on his slugfest with the Democratic governor of California.The fight to claim the mantle of the most viable Republican alternative to former President Donald J. Trump intensified this week. Ms. Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations, won the endorsement of the political network founded by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch and secured the backing of key donors like Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase. The upheaval in Mr. DeSantis’s campaign apparatus continued unabated on Friday with the departure of his super PAC’s chairman, Adam Laxalt.But Mr. DeSantis’s prime-time face-off on Fox News with Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday night seemed to buoy him as he barnstormed through South Carolina’s Upstate region near Greenville and its midsection outside Columbia before ending in Charleston and the Lowcountry.On Ms. Haley’s home turf, the Florida governor and his surrogates appeared unfazed by all the developments, blasting the support from Mr. Dimon as a nod from a Hillary Clinton supporter and dismissing the Koch network’s decision as evidence that Ms. Haley represents only the incremental change backed by Wall Street.“I don’t know what you could say about her tenure as governor here, but I’ve never heard of any major accomplishment that she had,” Mr. DeSantis told a town hall in Greer, S.C. “And I don’t think she’s shown a willingness to fight for you when it’s tough. It’s easy when the wind’s at your back.”Mr. DeSantis and his team have long cast the Republican nominating contest as a two-man race between him and Mr. Trump. But Ms. Haley’s rise in the polls and her successful drawing in of big-money donors have punctured that notion. After ignoring each other for much of the summer and the early fall, the two candidates now engage in near-daily attacks and have sparred with increasing intensity on the debate stage.They and their allied super PACs have clashed on a sometimes bewildering variety of fronts, from standard disputes over subjects like the strength of their conservative bona fides to more niche topics like dissecting each other’s records on recruiting Chinese businesses in their home states. Fact checkers have rated many of their attacks as false or misleading.Mr. DeSantis has been especially aggressive. On Fox News this week, he called Ms. Haley an “establishment” politician who was “fundamentally out of step with Republican voters” on core conservative issues, including immigration, where she has called for more legal pathways to recruit foreign workers. His campaign set up a website that accuses Ms. Haley of supporting “every liberal cause under the sun.”The Florida governor has also falsely claimed that Ms. Haley wanted to bring Gazan refugees to the United States. And he has mounted attacks on past statements by Ms. Haley that have sometimes mirrored his own, including her expression of sympathy after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. (Mr. DeSantis said at the time that he was “appalled” by Mr. Floyd’s death.) He has also criticized Ms. Haley for saying in 2016 that her state did not need a law banning transgender people from using the bathrooms of their choice, even though Mr. DeSantis had said during his first run for governor in 2018 that “getting into bathroom wars” was not “a good use of our time.”In addition, Mr. DeSantis’s allies have established a new super PAC to attack Ms. Haley in Iowa. Last month, the group, Fight Right, produced a misleading ad showing clips of Ms. Haley praising Hillary Clinton. The clips had been edited to excise her simultaneous criticisms of Mrs. Clinton.The Haley campaign counterpunched with an ad of its own called “Desperate Campaigns Do Desperate Things.”As Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis joust for second place, Mr. Trump’s position in the Republican primaries, even in South Carolina, remains dominant. Mr. DeSantis may have been willing to call out Ms. Haley by name in her home state, but he continued to tiptoe around the former president using the passive voice.On Friday, for instance, he insisted he could get Mexico to pay for the rest of a border wall.“I know that was promised — it didn’t happen,” he said, without naming the promiser, Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis also failed to identify that same promiser when he said: “We were promised we’d be tired of winning. Unfortunately, as a Republican, I’m tired of losing.”He was less reluctant when a voter asked about Ms. Haley’s suggestion last month that social media platforms verify all users and ban people from posting anonymously. Mr. DeSantis and others had criticized her comments as unconstitutional and a threat to free speech.“What Haley said was outrageous,” Mr. DeSantis responded, adding, “Honestly, it’s disqualifying.”In an interview on Fox News, Ms. Haley responded to Mr. DeSantis’s recent critiques about her record as governor.“Well, I think he went after my record as governor because he’s losing,” Ms Haley said. “I mean, who else can spend a hundred million dollars and drop half in the polls?”For some in South Carolina, Ms. Haley’s tenure — from 2011 to 2017 — is beginning to feel like a long time ago. Tim Vath, 54, who moved to Greer toward the end of Ms. Haley’s second term, found the support from the Koch network “questionable.” Suzanne Garrison, also 54 and from Greer, raised the specter of backroom politicking and suggested that Ms. Haley had not always followed through in implementing conservative policies.“I wish more people knew the real Nikki Haley,” said Ms. Garrison, a DeSantis supporter. “I just don’t trust her.”But in the tiny town of Prosperity, outside Columbia, the crowd was more mixed. Cathy Huddle, 61, of Chapin, S.C., said Ms. Haley’s accomplishments as governor “pale in comparison” to the wholesale conservative changes wrought by Mr. DeSantis in Florida.But Alice and Robert Tenny appeared unmoved by Mr. DeSantis’s pitch. Both said Ms. Haley’s experience at the United Nations gave her global knowledge and stature. And Mr. Tenny, 69, found Mr. DeSantis’s gloating over his performance against Mr. Newsom to be off-putting.“We’re kind of getting ahead of ourselves if we’re sitting down with the governor of a different party” before the first primaries, Mr. Tenny said. More

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      What a Petty Pair DeSantis and Newsom Made

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      It’s remarkable how fixated Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom have been on each other. It’s weird. These two opposite-party governors from opposite coasts of the country have been sparring — repeatedly, haughtily, naughtily — for more than two years. If their debate on Thursday night had been the climactic scene in a Hollywood rom-com, Newsom would have left his lectern, marched purposefully over to DeSantis, cut him off mid-insult and swept him into his arms, the tension between them revealed as equal parts ideological and erotic.That, alas, was not how the event played out. While I occasionally detected a spark in each man’s eyes — cocksure recognizes cocksure and has a grudging respect for it — I more often winced at the strychnine in their voices. Their loathing is sincere. It was there at the start of the debate, when DeSantis, in the first minute of his remarks, managed to mention Newsom’s infamously hypocritical pandemic dinner at the French Laundry. It was there in the middle, when DeSantis brought up the French Laundry again.And, oh, how it was there in Newsom’s wicked mockery of DeSantis’s plummeting promise as a presidential candidate. He noted that he and DeSantis had something “in common,” alluding to the fact that he himself is not making a White House bid. “Neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.”Newsom didn’t stop there, later saying that DeSantis was pathetically trying to “out-Trump Trump.” “By the way,” he quickly added, “how is that going for you, Ron? You’re down 41 points in your own home state.” And later still, for good measure: “When are you going to drop out and at least give Nikki Haley a shot to take down Donald Trump and this nomination?”Soon, I hope. But that didn’t mean the question was a good look for Newsom — or a good look for America.That was my problem with the Florida and California governors, as well as their face-off, which took place on a stage in Alpharetta, Ga., and was moderated by Sean Hannity and televised live by Fox News. While the gov-on-gov action was billed as a battle of red-state and blue-state worldviews and governing agendas, of the Republican way and the Democratic way, it became even more of a mirror of just how little quarter each side will give the other, how little grace it will show, how spectacularly it fails at constructive and civil dialogue, how profoundly and quickly it descends into pettiness.There was substance, yes — more than at the three Republican presidential debates — but it wasn’t broached honestly and maturely. It was instead an opportunity for selective statistics, flamboyant evasions, quipping, posturing. Each of these self-regarding pols kept altering the angle of his stance, shifting the altitude of his chin, changing his smile from caustic to complacent. It was as if they were rearranging their egos.And the dishonesty extended to Hannity, who front-loaded and stacked the roughly 90 minutes with Republicans’ favorite talking points and their preferred attacks on President Biden. There wasn’t a whisper from Hannity about abortion or DeSantis’s support of a six-week ban until 65 minutes into the event, nor did Hannity press the two candidates on matters of democracy, on the rioting of Jan. 6, 2021, on Trump’s attacks on invaluable American institutions, on his flouting of the rule of law.Those issues have immeasurable importance, but they took a back seat to border security, crime, tax rates and Americans’ movement to red states from blue ones. Fox News’s real agenda was to make Newsom’s defense of the Biden administration look like a lost cause. The cable network failed to do so, because Newsom is too forceful a brawler and too nimble a dancer to let that happen.He persuasively described DeSantis as the personification of right-wing, red-state stinginess and spitefulness. DeSantis punishingly cast Newsom as left-wing, blue-state profligacy in the flesh. One exchange late in the debate perfectly captured that dynamic.Feigning charitableness, DeSantis acknowledged: “California does have freedoms that some people don’t, that other states don’t. You have the freedom to defecate in public in California. You have the freedom to pitch a tent on Sunset Boulevard. You have the freedom to create a homeless encampment under a freeway and even light it on fire.” His litany went on.Newsom exuberantly countered it. “I love the rant on freedom,” he said sarcastically. “I mean, here’s a guy who’s criminalizing teachers, criminalizing doctors, criminalizing librarians and criminalizing women who seek their reproductive care.” All excellent points and all reasons, beyond the kinder climate, that I’d pilot my U-Haul toward California before Florida.But neither of the two governors left his analysis there. Just seconds later, they were trading taunts and talking over each other, as they had the whole night, during which each called the other a liar or something akin to it dozens of times.“You’re nothing but a bully,” Newsom said, switching up the slurs.“You’re a bully,” DeSantis shot back. I braced for an “I’m rubber, you’re glue” coda. In its place, I got the indelible image of DeSantis holding up a map that apparently charted the density of human feces in various areas of San Francisco.Neither of them won the debate. Haley did, because nothing about DeSantis’s screechy performance is likely to reverse her recent ascent into a sort of second-place tie with him in the Republican primary contest. Gretchen Whitmer did, because Newsom’s pungent smugness no doubt made many viewers more curious about the Michigan governor than about him as a Democratic prospect in 2028.By agreeing to this grim encounter, Newsom and DeSantis implicitly presented themselves as de facto leaders of their respective parties, with a relative youthfulness — Newsom is 56, and DeSantis is 45 — that distinguishes them from the actual leaders of their parties: Biden, 81, and Trump, 77.But leadership wasn’t what they displayed, and what they modeled was the boastful, belligerent manner in which most political disagreements are hashed out these days, an approach that yields more heat than light. “We have never been this divided,” Hannity proclaimed at the start, referring to the country, and just about every subsequent minute exhaustingly and depressingly bore out that assessment.The scariest part of all was when Hannity raised the possibility of extending the event by half an hour. The disagreeable governors agreed, proving that they had two other things in common: an appetite for attention and an itch to squabble.And the happiest part? When Hannity didn’t follow through on that threat. We’d all witnessed squabbling enough.I invite you to sign up for my free weekly email newsletter. You can follow me on Twitter (@FrankBruni).The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Nikki Haley’s First TV Ad Calls to Move Beyond ‘the Chaos of the Past’

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      The 30-second spot, part of a $10 million advertising effort in Iowa and New Hampshire, does not mention her front-running rival, Donald Trump, or President Biden.Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign released its first ad of the Republican primary race on Thursday, a spot that calls for “a new generation of conservative leadership” and presents her as a steady hand in the face of domestic and international threats.The ad, titled “Moral Clarity,” comes as Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor, aims to build on her momentum in the polls ahead of the first nominating contests in January. Former President Donald J. Trump, however, maintains a wide lead in surveys.The 30-second ad, part of a $10 million purchase in Iowa and New Hampshire, will air on broadcast and cable TV starting Friday. A super PAC backing Ms. Haley, SFA Fund Inc., has spent more than $20 million on television advertising time, including reserved spots well into January.Ms. Haley narrates the ad, and she does not mention Mr. Trump or President Biden. She twice refers to “chaos” — “chaos on our streets and college campuses,” and a need to leave behind “the chaos of the past,” reflecting concerns about Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump that have animated centrist Republicans.To drive home the point, the ad shows security-camera footage of hooded figures shooting guns on a street as well as images of pro-Palestinian protests and American flags being burned.Buoyed by strong debate performances, Ms. Haley has emerged in recent weeks as a challenger to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for the No. 2 spot in the primary field as both seek to dislodge Mr. Trump. She has largely sought to stake out nuanced positions on domestic issues like abortion (which she does not mention in the ad), while taking a hard-line stance on foreign policy, particularly China, Russia and Iran (which she does mention).Mr. Trump’s campaign has told supporters it expects to air its first broadcast TV ads in Iowa and New Hampshire starting on Friday. He has previously focused on national ads attacking Mr. Biden. More

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      It’s Not the Economy. It’s the Fascism.

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      To spend more than a little time toggling between news sites of different bents is to notice a fierce debate over the American economy right now. Which matters more — the easing of inflation or the persistence of prices that many people can’t afford or accept? Low unemployment or high interest rates? Is the intensity of Americans’ bad feelings about the economy a sane response or a senseless funk estranged from their actual financial circumstances?On such questions may the 2024 election turn, so the litigation of them is no surprise. It’s not just the economy, stupid. It’s the public relations war over it.But never in my adult lifetime has that battle seemed so agonizingly beside the point, such a distraction from the most important questions before us. In 2024, it’s not the economy. It’s the democracy. It’s the decency. It’s the truth.I’m not talking about what will influence voters most. I’m talking about what should. And I write that knowing that I’ll be branded an elitist whose good fortune puts him out of touch with the concerns of people living paycheck to paycheck or priced out of housing and medical care. I am lucky — privileged, to use and own the word of the moment — and I’m an imperfect messenger, as blinded by the peculiarities of his experience in the world as others are by theirs.But I don’t see any clear evidence that a change of presidents would equal an uptick in Americans’ living standards. And 2024, in any case, isn’t shaping up to be a normal election with normal stakes or anything close to that, at least not if Donald Trump winds up with the Republican presidential nomination — the likeliest outcome, to judge by current conditions. Not if he’s beaten by a Republican who had to buy into his fictions or emulate his ugliness to claim the prize. Not if the Republican Party remains hostage to the extremism on display in the House over these past few months.That assessment isn’t Trump derangement syndrome. It’s straightforward observation, consistent with Liz Cheney’s new memoir, “Oath and Honor,” at which my Times colleague Peter Baker got an advance peek. Cheney describes House Republicans’ enduring surrender to Trump as cowardly and cynical, and she’s cleareyed on what his nomination in 2024 would mean. “We will be voting on whether to preserve our republic,” she writes. “As a nation, we can endure damaging policies for a four-year term. But we cannot survive a president willing to terminate our Constitution.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Jamie Dimon Urges Donors, Even Democrats, to ‘Help Nikki Haley’

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      The JPMorgan Chase C.E.O.’s show of support for Ms. Haley came on the same day that a new super PAC set out to try to draw independent voters to her candidacy.The chief executive of Wall Street’s largest bank threw his support behind Nikki Haley on Wednesday, just as a group of entrepreneurs confirmed that they were forming a super PAC to try to draw independent voters to her.The two developments provided new signs that opponents of former President Donald J. Trump in the business world are coalescing around Ms. Haley as their favored alternative.“Even if you’re a very liberal Democrat, I urge you, help Nikki Haley, too,” Jamie Dimon, the chief of JPMorgan Chase, said at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit, a conference of global business leaders, addressing Wall Street executives in the room who might donate to candidates. “Get a choice on the Republican side that might be better than Trump.”Mr. Dimon had called Ms. Haley late last month to praise her campaign, but his comments on Wednesday were a far more public endorsement. He did not take the position that the nominee should be anyone but Mr. Trump, adding: “He might be the president. I have to deal with that, too.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      For Haley, Rise in Polls Feeds Voter Enthusiasm on Trail

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      The crowds are her biggest yet, and voters are warming up to her candidacy, but Nikki Haley still faces a daunting task in taking down the front-runner, Donald Trump.In a packed opera house on Tuesday night in Derry, N.H., Hannah Kesselring had a pressing question for Nikki Haley, one that many voters in the room appear to have been considering as Ms. Haley has climbed in the 2024 Republican presidential contest.A punchy 9-year-old decked in a red and navy blue Haley cap, Hannah had gone viral when she spoke up at another Haley town hall before Thanksgiving. She had since had the chance to see Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy stump in her state, she told Ms. Haley. Now, she wanted to know three reasons Ms. Haley “believed she should be elected president over them.”Ms. Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and a former United Nations ambassador, didn’t skip a beat. She ticked off her executive experience, her foreign policy credentials and her concern for the state of the country and the world.“I am a mom,” she said to several nods in the room. “And the truth is, I don’t want my kids growing up like this.”It was the kind of exchange that Ms. Haley has used to steadily build momentum — and it seems to be paying off.In diners, gyms and event halls across New Hampshire and South Carolina, the state she led for six years, voters have recently shown increased interest in Ms. Haley’s campaign, with a palpable shift in energy. For some, the hope that she might be able to consolidate the wing of her party craving an alternative to former President Donald J. Trump has become less far-fetched.At her town hall in Derry, where almost half the people in the audience raised their hands when she asked if this was their first time watching her speak, Ms. Haley drew louder cheers beyond her usual applause lines. One day earlier, in Bluffton, S.C., she had addressed a buoyant audience of roughly 2,500 people — the largest yet in her home state — walking onstage to “Eye of the Tiger,” her standard opener, and chants of “Haley, Haley, Haley.”“We have one more fella we have to catch up to,” she said at that event, referring to Mr. Trump.In South Carolina, where her homecoming had the feel of a rally, Ms. Haley’s message appeared to resonate. Her campaign officials said they had to move the event to a larger location last week after so many people signed up to attend.But she still has a lot of convincing to do. Ms. Haley remains far behind the former president she served under, who continues to dominate in national polls, as well as in surveys in every early-voting state.In Iowa, her toughest challenger for second place is Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, who has made the state pivotal to his prospects. In New Hampshire, where she comfortably holds the second slot, it is former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey who has been gaining ground in his do-or-die state.At Ms. Haley’s town hall in Derry, several voters warmed up to her but were not yet necessarily convinced. Teri and Donald Synborski were still weighing Ms. Haley, Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Christie — anyone but Mr. Trump, they said. Mr. Synborski, 67, a corporate finance managing director, had caught wind of Ms. Haley’s momentum when he first saw her speak at a crowded diner in Londonderry not too long ago. The room was so packed, he recalled, that reporters were pushed up against him.Still, he said he would probably like to see Mr. DeSantis one more time before making up his mind. “He would really have to do something earth-shattering for me to be swayed to vote for him versus Nikki,” he added. “I’m leaning heavily in her direction, but I still call myself undecided.”That alone is progress for Ms. Haley. There was a time when political strategists and observers likened her path in New Hampshire to the steep and narrow road leading to the tallest peak in New England, a feat captured on a popular state bumper sticker: “This car climbed Mt. Washington.”But her rise there and beyond can be attributed to a grueling pace in the early-voting states, a series of standout debate performances and new interest among powerful players in the Republican Party’s donor class after two contenders — former Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott, a fellow South Carolinian — folded their bids this fall.Ms. Haley has been drawing more enthusiastic crowds. Her largest yet in South Carolina, in Bluffton, had the feel of a homecoming rally.Meg Kinnard/Associated PressThe political network founded by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch endorsed her campaign on Tuesday, giving her another financial boost and access to a direct-mail operation, field workers to knock on doors and people to call up prospective voters. Kenneth G. Langone, the billionaire Home Depot co-founder, who has donated to Ms. Haley’s campaign, is considering giving more and is expected to meet with her next week in New York.As she has risen, her rivals have taken notice. In recent national television interviews, Mr. Christie has kept up his criticism of Ms. Haley over what he describes as her unwillingness to take on Mr. Trump — “Either run against him or don’t run against him” — and her comments at an Iowa event before a conservative Christian audience, in which she said she would have signed a six-week ban on abortion when she was governor.“I want to be clear that there is no consensus around a six-week national abortion ban, and I wouldn’t sign it if I were president even,” Mr. Christie told CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” saying that would be putting such a decision “into the hands of politicians over people.”In an interview, Austin McCubbin, the state director for the Trump campaign in South Carolina, described Ms. Haley as a “paper tiger,” arguing that she had “absolutely no political operation in South Carolina,” nor representatives actively attending and engaged in local G.O.P. meetings. Trump campaign officials say that Mr. Trump has 83 endorsements from state lawmakers — more than all other Republicans combined.Responding to a request for comment on the arguments from the Trump campaign, Olivia Perez-Cubas, a spokeswoman for Ms. Haley, said, “Americans are ready for a new-generation, conservative leader who will leave the drama and chaos behind.”Pacing before New Hampshire voters at the Derry Opera House, Ms. Haley seemed to ignore her critics and once more made the case for herself, saying it was time for Republicans to “acknowledge some hard truths” — specifically, her party has lost the popular vote for president in seven of the last eight elections.“This isn’t just about the presidency,” she said, contending that her candidacy would be a windfall down the ballot. “This is about governorships up and down. This is about House seats. This is about Senate seats. This is about truly righting the ship to get us back to where we need to be.” More

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      Koch Network Endorses Nikki Haley in Bid to Push GOP Past Trump

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      The support will give Ms. Haley more organizational strength in the field as she battles Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for the No. 2 spot in the Republican presidential race.The political network founded by the Koch brothers is endorsing Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary race, giving her organizational muscle and financial heft as she battles Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for second place in Iowa.The group announced its plans in a memo on Tuesday.The commitment by the network, Americans for Prosperity Action, bolsters Ms. Haley as the campaign enters the final seven weeks before the first nominating contest. Since the first Republican primary debate, Ms. Haley has steadily climbed in polls, even as Mr. DeSantis has slipped. Former President Donald J. Trump remains the dominant front-runner in the race.“In sharp contrast to recent elections that were dominated by the negative baggage of Donald Trump and in which good candidates lost races that should have been won, Nikki Haley, at the top of the ticket, would boost candidates up and down the ballot,” reads the memo from Emily Seidel, a senior adviser to Americans for Prosperity Action, who adds that Ms. Haley would win “the key independent and moderate voters that Trump has no chance to win.”The memo goes on to say that the country “is being ripped apart by extremes on both sides,” adding: “The moment we face requires a tested leader with the governing judgment and policy experience to pull our nation back from the brink. Nikki Haley is that leader.”The group laid out polling describing the shift in the race toward Ms. Haley in a separate memo.Ms. Haley, who has described Mr. Trump’s time as past, has gained support from donors and elite opinion-makers, many of whom describe her as the best alternative to Mr. Trump.But Ms. Haley’s campaign does not have the organizational strength that Mr. DeSantis does, thanks to work the super PAC affiliated with his campaign has been doing for much of the year.The endorsement from the super PAC established by David and Charles Koch could help change that. It will give her access to a direct-mail operation, field workers to knock on doors and people making phone calls to prospective voters in Iowa and beyond. The group has money to spend on television advertisements, as well.The network’s backing also helps fuel Ms. Haley’s momentum heading into the final weeks before voting begins.Americans for Prosperity Action has been among the country’s largest spenders on anti-Trump material this year, buying online ads and sending mailers to voters in several states, including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. All told, the group has spent more than $9 million in independent expenditures opposing Mr. Trump.One mailer in Iowa, paid for by the group, shows images of Mr. Trump and President Biden and reads, “You can stop Biden … by letting go of Trump.”But so far, none of that spending has benefited any of Mr. Trump’s rivals, who have been busy battling one another.The Koch network is well financed, raising more than $70 million for political races as of this summer.The group has been committed to opposing Mr. Trump’s return as leader of the Republican Party. In a memo in February, Ms. Seidel, who also serves as the president of Americans for Prosperity, the political network’s parent group, wrote: “We need to turn the page on the past. So the best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter.”Mr. DeSantis’s campaign, which has had upheaval in recent days, including the resignation of the chief executive of his super PAC, tried to throw cold water on the endorsement before it was even announced.“Every dollar spent on Nikki Haley’s candidacy should be reported as an in-kind to the Trump campaign,” Andrew Romeo, a DeSantis campaign spokesman, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, 30 minutes before Americans for Prosperity Action officials announced the endorsement on a press call.“No one has a stronger record of beating the establishment than Ron DeSantis, and this time will be no different,” he wrote. More