Primaries are practice; they aren’t the final step of the election “game.”
Primaries are in place to figure out who your party is going play come game time. And generally speaking, unless you personally know one of the candidates or they have done something for you specifically, you want your party to put the best player on the field. And the best player Republicans have, according to the numbers, is Nikki Haley, not Trump.
I acknowledge that Donald Trump is leading the Republican field “big-league.” On Real Clear Politics (RCP’s) national aggregates, he’s up by about 50 points or so. He’s also leading by double digits in key “first in the nation” states like Iowa, and New Hampshire… but for the life of me, I cannot understand why.
Let’s first start with favorability of candidates running for the presidency. Trump’s favorability is underwater by about 15 points according to the most recent aggregates. That’s “okay” when considering that his favorability rating is roughly one point better than Joe Biden’s. However, of all the Republicans or Democrats running, Nikki Haley has the best favorability rating, which is about 13 points better than Trump’s.
It’s also important to remember that come November, the election won’t be a fight over which candidate got out their base better; it’ll be a race to win the 40% or so of voters who are politically independent. In looking at the Economist/YouGov’s survey earlier this month, over half (54%) of independents say they have an unfavorable view of Trump, with only 5% saying they are unsure how they feel about him. On the other hand, only 38% have an unfavorable view of Haley, with 40% saying they were unsure of how they felt about her. If you asked any political strategist which numbers are better to work with, it’d be Haley’s, hands down.
Some might be thinking, “But this isn’t a race to see who can be most liked, it’s a race to see who the next president will be.”
I couldn’t agree more. In the 2024 general election matchups, Trump is narrowly beating Biden by about one point. However, Haley is beating Biden by a larger margin AND there are a lot of voters who are “unsure” how they would vote given that matchup. This is to say, Haley has time to grow her name ID among those who don’t know her yet (i.e. the 40% of independents that don’t know enough about her to make a decision).
So, by the numbers: Haley’s favorability is better than Trump’s; she outperforms Trump against Biden in the general election, and she has the ability to still introduce herself to a handful of key voter groups. All of these are upsides.
This isn’t to say that Trump also couldn’t run up his numbers, but he has to take folks who currently oppose him, or are unfavorable towards him, and switch them to his favor. That’s a difficult lift. Haley only needs to move people from “undecided” — much more easily accomplished.
One last item, for which there aren’t any metrics: the Presidential debates. Not the primary debates, not Republican v. Republican. I’m talking the Republican candidate against Biden in late summer. The key to winning a debate is differentiating yourself from the opposition in a dignified and compelling manner. Simply looking of the optics of the stage, Haley would have an easier time differentiating herself from Biden than Trump would have.
Bottom line: While Trump is leading on the practice field (primaries), if I were the Republican Party or primary voters, I’d want Haley in for the actual game — as all the numbers point to her having a better chance of winning.
More to the point: If you’re a Republican and the most important thing to you this election is to beat Biden come November, it’s illogical to support Donald Trump. Nicki Haley’s numbers are simply better.
