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BEDFORD, N.H. — Diane Weir isn’t an obvious vote for Nikki Haley. Unlike the former U.N. ambassador, she’s opposed to more U.S. spending on the war in Ukraine. Yet she was impressed by seeing Haley in person and hearing her pitch to seek common ground on abortion.
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“She didn’t seem canned,” said the 53-year-old Republican, who is undecided. Weir added, “I think she could persevere. I see her moving up.”
But Brian Guimond, echoing many others across this state, has rallied squarely behind Donald Trump. “People are voting for him because even though he’s not exactly what they want, he’s the closest that they’re going to get to a non-politician,” Guimond said as he left the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, which draws virtually every presidential candidate and serves coffee in C-SPAN 2024 campaign mugs.
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Long regarded by many as an afterthought in the Republican race, Haley is gaining some steam in New Hampshire, leapfrogging Ron DeSantis into a still-distant second behind Trump in some recent polls, as the struggling Florida governor puts the bulk of his time and resources into Iowa’s first-in-the-nation GOP caucus. Boosted by well-received debate performances, slow-but-steady campaigning and a new surge of spending, Haley is trying to seize a narrow opening in a pivotal state. Her pitch has piqued growing interest from moderate voters such as Weir, even as Haley has embraced more polarizing positions on some issues.
At the same time, Trump — facing 91 criminal charges stemming from four indictments and campaigning on promises of “retribution”— has built a dominant advantage across early nominating states including New Hampshire, where he triumphed in 2016 and is an imposing challenge for Haley and everyone else in the field. Inside the Red Arrow, a TV over the counter cycled through pictures of “famous visitors” and a slide in frequent rotation commemorated Trump’s 2016 visit with an exclamation mark.
The shifting terrain among the non-Trump candidates has drawn renewed attention to this unique and crucial battleground, where the winner has gone on to become the nominee more often the victor in Iowa. Republicans here have long shown an independent streak; they have backed a different candidate than Iowans in recent years; and they are more moderate on social issues such as abortion.
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New Hampshire also has a history of elevating women in state races, a vocal contingent of anti-Trump Republicans and a primary system that allows undeclared voters to participate in either major party’s contest. All of this has opened the door here for Haley, if she can consolidate support from voters not drawn to Trump.
The pace of action is picking up. Most of the Republican field will converge in the state in coming days for a summit after Trump returns for a Monday speech. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu has signaled plans to endorse against Trump, and multiple groups are urging undeclared voters to oppose the former president in the primary — even encouraging Democrats to cross over as their party remakes its nominating calendar and President Biden considers skipping the state.
Some polls have shown several candidates jockeying for second in New Hampshire. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie is focusing on the state almost exclusively, and groups allied with Christie — among others — were behind mailers and ads encouraging Democrats to switch their affiliation by an Oct. 6 deadline and vote in the Republican primary to thwart Trump.
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DeSantis, who hung onto second in a recent CBS News survey, has sought to broaden his message beyond his “war on woke” in Florida, rolling out a national economic plan in New Hampshire. But he’s fallen significantly in the polls while focusing elsewhere and embracing causes that play better in Iowa, including strict state-level abortion bans.
Haley’s pitch appeals to “the adults in the room” and Granite Staters who consider themselves “more cerebral conservatives” who value “talking about limited government, economic freedom and mobility rather than the guttural total going after woke, something online, playing to the fringes of the party,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist in the state who is not working for any candidate.
“That’s where you see the difference between a DeSantis and a Haley campaign. And now you’re seeing that in the polls as well,” he said.
Haley ramps up, but some say it’s late
Haley’s campaign says its footprint in the state is growing, hiring a New Hampshire state director just this past week. Some regard the development as a late start, and have questioned if her campaign apparatus is capable of meeting the moment and carrying forward her current momentum through February.
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A super PAC supporting Haley, Stand for America PAC, has become the second-largest spender in the Boston media market — ramping up in August to total more than $10 million this year, just behind the super PAC supporting Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who has found little traction.
Haley will file for the primary ballot in coming days and by the end of the trip will have held nearly 60 events in the state since her February campaign launch. Last month she unveiled a slate of campaign chairs in all of the state’s ten counties.
Haley’s New Hampshire events feature campaign signs showing her and the state’s matching initials on either side of a red heart. At a rotary club meeting in Portsmouth last month, she predicted there will only be three or four candidates still in the race when New Hampshire votes, and that her performance there would launch her into a head-to-head showdown in her home state of South Carolina.
“Going into Iowa, my guess is we’re looking at four, maybe five. Couple will drop off in Iowa, they’ll come to New Hampshire, I think you’re looking at three, maybe four. Couple drop off, and you have a head to head in my sweet home state of South Carolina,” she said to applause, holding two fingers in the air.
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David Tille, a Haley supporter who led Ben Carson’s 2016 campaign in the state, suggested that her position may rise due to support from independent voters, citing the state’s record of going against the status quo. CNN surveys found that Haley’s support among “moderates” jumped from 6 percent in July to 24 percent last month, as she also ticked up a couple points with conservatives.
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Haley helped pass a 20-week abortion ban in South Carolina and has said that she would sign federal abortion restrictions that can pass Congress, including a 15-week limit. But she’s also argued most national restrictions are politically impractical, something she’s emphasized in New Hampshire.
“This issue is personal for every woman and every man. So I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice, any more than I want you to judge me for being pro-life,” Haley said at the Portsmouth event, adding that congressional Republicans don’t have the votes they would need for a federal abortion ban. “Why don’t we just find consensus?”
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Her stance has caught the attention of many centrist voters in a state where many Republicans support abortion rights. Former New Hampshire speaker pro tempore Kimberly Rice, a co-chair of Haley’s campaign in the state, said her own daughter changed her party affiliation to be able to vote for Haley in the primary because she found that message appealing.
Beyond abortion, Haley has appealed to the GOP base on many issues — for instance, calling transgender athletes’ participation in girls’ sports the “women’s issue of our time” while also touting once-orthodox conservative foreign policy views at odds with Trump and his followers. Opponents argue that her momentum is limited in a party increasingly skeptical of U.S. funding for Ukraine and eager for Trump-like brashness and populism rather than traditional conservatism.
When it comes to Trump, Haley has changed her position over time, criticizing him in 2016, then joining his administration the next year. She said she would not run in 2024 if Trump did, then reversed course.
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Some DeSantis allies believe the fight for leading Trump challenger has effectively narrowed to Haley and DeSantis, but they also argue he’s a better fit for the pro-Trump wing of the party and that Haley has yet to face the scrutiny DeSantis has felt. The DeSantis campaign is hoping that a good showing in Iowa shapes races in the subsequent early primary states.
Khristin Carroll, a 71-year-old independent voter from Bedford, N.H., is dreading a rematch between Trump and Biden and has long liked DeSantis as an alternative. But something about Haley’s personal presence just clicked, she said — echoing other voters who were sold once they heard Haley at an event or watched her debate. “Once I heard Haley, I liked her better,” Carroll said.
Trump in control, DeSantis declining
Trump has campaigned in the state infrequently but energized his base while railing against his indictments, calling them a “badge of honor.” He has attacked the judges in his cases, threatened his critics with retribution, reiterated his false claims the 2020 election was stolen and invoked violent themes, recently saying shoplifters should be shot.
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Voters are “not thrilled with the personality and the drama, but they voted for him once or twice already, and you know, they could live with him as the nominee again. So that is a problem,” for other candidates, said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party who now identifies as a Never Trumper.
Trump, who campaigned in 2016 on appointing Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, recently criticized the six-week state abortion bans he enabled — comments that could hurt him in Iowa, where Republicans passed a six-week limit later blocked in court — but play better in New Hampshire.
Reflecting the shifting race, Trump has recently been taking aim at Haley after focusing on DeSantis exclusively for months. Following the second GOP debate in California, he called Haley “birdbrain” in a social media post, criticizing her running against him after saying she wouldn’t and claiming she doesn’t have “the talent or temperament to do the job.” Haley, who served under Trump, responded, “It means we are in 2nd and moving up fast. Bring it!”
Haley pulled ahead of the non-Trump pack in a USA TODAY/Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll of likely New Hampshire primary voters released Wednesday — trailing Trump by 30 points, 49 to 19, but vaulting past DeSantis at 10 percent.
Trump has shown strong appeal to White, working class Republicans and David Paleologos, who directs the research center behind the Suffolk poll, emphasized the hurdles for Haley even as their survey had positive signs for her. Voters’ second choices suggest that even if every other Republican rival besides Trump dropped out, Trump would still win in New Hampshire, according to Paleologos — because so many of their supporters would migrate to the former president.
The pollster also said that if Trump loses support, it’s not clear they would migrate to Haley, with more than a third of his supporters calling DeSantis their second choice and 11 percent saying Haley.
DeSantis is returning to New Hampshire in coming days but hasn’t campaigned there recently while focusing on Iowa, where he polls second and is relocating many staff.
DeSantis has an allied super PAC with a large door-knocking operation and a fall ad campaign highlighting his promises to leave suspected drug traffickers breaking through the wall at the southern border “stone cold dead.” But many Republicans see him fading here.
“There’s no question he’s on the decline,” Cullen said of DeSantis, citing his absence in the state since mid-August. “Once the perception gets out there that you don’t care about New Hampshire, I think it’s hard to overcome that.”
Bryan Griffin, press secretary for the DeSantis campaign, said the governor has “the strongest early state infrastructure of any campaign” and that DeSantis will make multiple trips to New Hampshire this month. “This is a two-man race between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump,” he said.
The jostling between the Haley and DeSantis campaigns to be the primary alternative to Trump is playing out among GOP donors as well. Advisers to Haley and DeSantis will both make their pitch to the American Opportunity Alliance network of donors this month. The event was reported earlier by the New York Times.
Wells reported from Washington.
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