Nikki Haley’s pitch is that she can beat Joe Biden. But now that she’s lost — twice — voters are signaling they aren’t concerned about electability as much as a candidate that shares their values.
Voters and the political narratives are an ourobouros of bullshit. Voters are fickle and their priorities are ephemeral. One voter can respond to four polls in one day and give four different answers as to why they are voting for their candidate. We internalize the news articles that tell us one candidate is more likeable or has a stronger connection with certain demographics.
There are also ten ways to spin any result, and humans are really bad at being objective when it comes to their own thinking. You could say Trump beat Haley by double digits, or you could say Haley outperformed her expectations, getting almost half the votes. Or you could say New Hampshire is barely relevant and hardly a representation of national Republicans. What voters will believe and what voters want to be true usually overlap.
Haley’s pitch is that she’s a conservative who isn’t Trump. But she can’t attack him too hard for being Trump, because his followers are absolutely devoted to supporting him. If Haley is going to win, she needs Trump supporters as well as her own. But Trump is deeply unpopular in a lot of states. Haley could actually win a few states in the primaries.
And Trump could be disqualified for supporting an insurrection. The SCOTUS will rule in February, and while I’m not holding my breath, anything is possible.
And Trump could die. The man is old and in poor health. He also owes a lot of money to oligarchs who might decide he’s more of a liability than an asset.
So, if you’re asking why people are supporting Haley, like the one Koch who is bankrolling her campaign, you can ignore what they actually say and assume it’s because they want a contender in fighting shape just in case Trump isn’t available for one reason or another. That, or they just despise Trump and will vote for any other conservative.
Thank God they’re voting based on their horrid principles. The GOP just might’ve picked someone [seemingly] moderate enough to keep liberals and progressives at home. If Trump ever gives up his quest for the presidency we might be in deep shit. All of the other candidates are the same but they don’t say the quiet stuff out loud nearly as often.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
That’s nothing to be proud of," the former U.N. ambassador has told crowds in Iowa, New Hampshire and now South Carolina, before boasting of a December Wall Street Journal poll that found her 17 points ahead of Joe Biden in a head-to-head matchup.
The argument failed in the first two voting contests, now that Haley has lost to Trump by more than 30 points in Iowa and, a smaller margin, but still double-digits in New Hampshire.
Entrance polls showed that only 14% of Iowa GOP caucusgoers said a candidate’s ability to defeat Biden was their top factor in choosing.
Similarly, in New Hampshire exit polls, the same percentage of Republican primary voters, 14%, ranked the ability to defeat Joe Biden as their top priority.
This year, Republican voters also badly want to defeat Joe Biden, but many say electability isn’t a big factor for them.
Still, the parties generally have different attitudes toward electability, says Matt Grossmann, a political scientist at Michigan State University.
The original article contains 1,016 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 84%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!