GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley waited until the Republican field was clear before she started aiming her arrows at Donald Trump, but with Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott all crying uncle and dropping out of the race, Haley was left with nowhere else to aim.
Turns out Haley’s a strong Trump critic who speaks with a voice many non-MAGA Republicans wish she had found earlier. It’s too late, goes the conventional wisdom, for Haley to emerge from primary season as the GOP nominee — she’s lost six straight states to the former president and his base appears determined to deliver him the nomination.
But Haley’s acerbic rhetoric toward Trump, which she presents as realism coupled with an outside-the-bubble awareness of the broader electorate, isn’t too late to draw Trump blood for another constituency that likes her style — Biden supporters.
Polls reveal that Biden has struggled to deflect blame for the problems at the border, even with the latest Trump-tinged machinations by the House of Representatives as it rejected the Senate’s bipartisan effort to codify major policy changes at the border.
Haley articulates exactly what Democrats are saying about the hypocrisy — that Trump doesn’t want to solve the border issue, but wants chaos instead, because he feels it’ll help him in November.
Haley says the reason the bipartisan deal to secure the border didn’t pass is because Donald Trump sabotaged it: He said don’t do it because it’ll hurt me pic.twitter.com/DlunnANK0a
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) February 28, 2024
The Biden-Harris campaign’s digital unit has repeatedly reposted Haley’s criticisms of Trump with approbation. She not only calls him out on the disingenuous border stance, Haley also convincingly paints Trump as a weak candidate in a straightforward tone Biden-Harris couldn’t do better — to judge by their shares.
Haley: Donald Trump in all the early states lost 40% of the vote. He can’t win the general election pic.twitter.com/PgKVuHi6RN
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) February 28, 2024
California Governor Gavin Newsom may fill the role of Biden surrogate at times, but in battering Trump he is perhaps only Haley’s equal.
Newsom himself indicates Haley is crushing the messaging for Democrats, saying of the GOP challenger: “I think she’s one of our better surrogates.”
The Haley clip above — shared by Biden-Harris HQ — emphasizes what the mainstream media is missing when reporting on the primary success of Trump so far: that it’s not exactly an overwhelming show of strength. Trump keeps losing close to 40% of Republican-only voters, she cautions.
“If you can’t win 40% of the vote,” Haley asserts, “you can’t win a general election.”