Ron DeSantis, governor of California and the politician who at the time seemed to be the alternative to the unpredictable Donald Trump for the Republican candidacy, threw in the towel yesterday after calibrating his support and verifying the lack of funds to continue in the race for the nomination . DeSantis limited himself to asking, through the X network, to vote for Trump.
DeSantis was the politician most similar to Trump himself. He shared the same social proposals, in some of which he was even more radical. He lacked, however, the loquacity and perfidy that have made the former president unique. His abandonment after the Iowa caucuses, without waiting for the New Hampshire primary, which will be held on Tuesday, indicates the extent to which the Florida man is aware of Trump's overwhelming power over the Republican Party. With her abandonment, Nikki Haley is left as the only contender in a race that started just a few days ago.
All the focus is now on what is going to happen in New Hampshire. In this state, less Trumpist and conservative, the former US ambassador to the UN, Haley, has more options to beat Trump. In fact, she will be her great litmus test in the Republican race. The latest polls place her about 14 points behind the former president, with 34.2% of voting intentions.
Driven by these figures, Haley intensified her attacks against the New York tycoon last week. “The majority of Americans do not want to have to choose between two octogenarians running for the White House,” she said Tuesday in Bretton Woods (New Hampshire), ensuring that the lucidity of the former president and Joe Biden are “in decline.” “We cannot have a person whom we question if she is really fit for the pressures of the presidency,” she reiterated at another event this Saturday in Keene, “we need a generational change.”
In the speech, Haley accused Trump of dishonesty and criticized his ties to “dictators”: she said that she “has an affair” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, that she exchanges “love letters” with North Korean Kim Jong-un, and accused of praising Chinese leader Xi Jinping “after China gave us Covid.” They are, by far, the most direct attacks that she has launched during the entire campaign, in which she has rarely mentioned her pending accounts with the justice system, which accuses her of 91 serious crimes in four different criminal proceedings.
True to his style manual, Trump launched a racist mockery at Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, laughing at her first name (Nimarata), and nicknamed her first “Nimrada” and then “Nimbra” in two publications on his social network, Truth. Social. “Haley lacks presidential credentials,” she said Friday in a campaign speech in Concord, the capital of New Hampshire, “so I probably won't choose her as my vice president.”
“I know her very well. She's not tough enough, smart enough, or respected enough. She is not suitable for this job,” she said in a speech full of contempt for Haley, who was part of her administration in 2017 as ambassador to the UN. “She's not going to be able to deal with President Xi. She is not going to be able to deal with Putin.” In addition, the mogul said that Haley “has the votes of Democrats and progressives, who will infiltrate the Republican primaries.” However, voters registered as Democrats in New Hampshire cannot vote in the Republican election, although independents can.
In another speech on Saturday in Manchester, New Hampshire's most populous city, Trump appeared surrounded by leaders from Haley's home state and former governor, South Carolina, which will hold its primary on February 24. He was accompanied by the current governor, Henry McMaster, as well as the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, the treasurer, the president of the state House of Representatives and several representatives of the southern state in the US Congress. “Almost all the politicians in South Carolina support me,” the former president celebrated.
Of all of them, the most relevant support is that of Senator Tim Scott, who was a candidate for president, but withdrew in November due to lack of support. He has followed the same path as Vivek Ramaswamy and Asa Hutchinson, who announced the end of their campaign after their disappointing results in the Iowa caucuses. All of them preceded DeSantis in their departure after seeing his poor projection in the polls.
In the New Hampshire Republican primary, citizens registered as independents can vote, which is 40% in the northeastern state of the country. While the Republican base is clearly aligned with Trump, Haley is banking on the support of these more moderate voters to pull off the upset. With an intense campaign, she has won the support of the governor, Republican Chris Sununu, but his options remain very limited.
The Democrats also hold primaries this Tuesday, although they will do so in disagreement with the Democratic National Committee, which decided last year to begin its electoral cycle in South Carolina on February 3. Consequently, Biden's name will not appear on the ballots, so Democrats who want to vote for him will have to write their name by hand.
This will give an opportunity to his rivals, Congressman Dean Phillips and the writer Marianne Williamson, who have minimal options to unseat him in the Democratic nomination, since together they do not reach 10% of the voting intention at the national level. As usual, the incumbent president running for re-election has no firm alternatives in his primary process.
