Nikki Haley, others struggle to gain 2024 ground on Trump

Americans are bracing for a parade of contenders positioning themselves as more moderate, less bombastic alternatives.

Nikki Haley chats with a supporter after the town hall in Laconia. Picture: AFP

Nine months before the first 2024 US presidential primary, Donald Trump’s onetime UN envoy Nikki Haley is barnstorming early-voting New Hampshire, one of several Republicans scrambling to dent the huge poll lead of the nomination frontrunner.

With Mr Trump’s legal setbacks mounting, Americans are bracing for a parade of contenders positioning themselves as more moderate, less bombastic alternatives to the former president taking another stab at the White House.

The lesser known candidates seek to defy early polling and the uncomfortable narrative – for them, at least – that Mr Trump is already dominating the race to square off against incumbent Joe Biden in the general election.

His challengers “are like a ­facade on the front of a building. They’ll end up going away,” Sandra LaRose, an office manager who voted for Mr Trump, said over a plate of bacon and hash browns at Manchester’s Red Arrow diner.

Supporters of Ms Haley and other hopefuls “are wearing rose-coloured glasses,” Ms LaRose, 58, added. “But if you pull back those glasses, does she really have what it takes to lead?”

The 51-year-old Ms Haley, a child of Indian immigrants and a former governor of South Carolina, appeared undaunted on Friday as she hosted an intimate town hall in Laconia, her third in three days, where she wore a sweater with “She who dares wins” knitted on the front.

“I have been underestimated in everything I’ve ever done. And it’s a blessing, because it makes me scrappy, and it makes me work hard,” Ms Haley told some 150 people squeezed into the American Legion hall.

While she insists she is in it for the long haul, one question observers might ask is: Why?

Ms Haley, like most Republican contenders clawing for attention, is a blip on the polling radar –she hovers between 1 and 5 per cent in recent polls. Only one GOP potential candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, is doing demonstrably better.

He has yet to officially launch a presidential campaign but provocative DeSantis political moves – including railing against tolerance-promoting “woke­ness” and clashing with entertainment giant Disney – have put him in a spotlight.

Still, Mr Trump’s national lead is anywhere from 20 to 46 percentage points, something he was quick to brag about on Thursday during his own New Hampshire rally where he suggested there was no need to even debate his ­rivals for the nomination. “Why would you do that?” he mused.

While the contenders say they are in it to win, some voters including 75-year-old Sara Mack see them as possibly auditioning to be Mr Trump’s running mate.

Ms Mack, a voter from Auburn, New Hampshire, said at Mr Trump’s event that she respected the Republicans joining the race, but believed their main selling point was merely being less chaotic versions of Mr Trump. She appreciates Ms Haley’s foreign policy credentials gained as Mr Trump’s UN envoy but “she’s not tough enough to go to Iran, and North Korea and Putin and China,” Ms Mack said. “Trump is.”

Erica, a 27-year-old New Hampshire native in the military, said she believed “there are better alternatives” than Mr Trump.

Other voters were hostile to the notion Mr Trump could lose to someone like Ms Haley, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who announced his bid this week, or former vice-president Mike Pence, who is considering a run.

Another potential candidate is senator Tim Scott, who has spoken of his ambition to become the country’s first black Republican president.

One undecided voter acknowledged the also-rans were “swimming upstream.” Brendan Florio, an automobile dealer from Laconia, said he was at Ms Haley’s event to see whether she “can pry my vote away” from Mr Trump but “I think it’s going to be tough for anybody that goes against him” .

“That’s probably one reason DeSantis is holding back from entering the race. Why does he want to subject himself to that if he doesn’t have a chance?” he said.

AFP