As Republican primaries heat up, the attention has fallen on Nikki Haley and Donald Trump as the most likely candidates for the Republican nomination. Ultimately, though, Trump’s campaign has strength and reach that Haley’s cannot match. Since Trump announced his 2024 campaign in November of 2022, he has captured the majority of support and attention from Republican voters. Haley, who announced her candidacy in early 2023, was trailing in the race from the start, and it appears unlikely that she will be able to bridge the gap. Throughout the past year, Haley’s campaign did see impressive growth and was a strong third favorite behind Trump and Ron DeSantis. Even in the wake of DeSantis’ withdrawal, it is clear that Haley remains a far second to Trump.
Trump’s dedicated supporters have given him a massive edge since the beginning of his second campaign. According to CNN, after Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, 69% of Republicans believed that Biden’s win was not legitimate. Following the election, merchandise advocating for a 2024 Trump campaign proliferated among his supporters across America, two and a half years before any official announcement. Trump’s campaign rests on the support he built before and during his presidency. Haley, distinguished mainly by her tenure as the Governor of South Carolina, had nowhere near the following Trump did heading into the 2024 race. The lack of preexisting recognition and support for Haley made growing her campaign far more difficult by comparison.
Additionally, the gap in support for Trump and Haley only began narrowing very recently. According to the Pew Research Center, at the end of last year, 52% of Republicans favored Trump for the nomination, while only 14% supported DeSantis and 11% supported Haley. A month later, on Jan. 15, 2024, at the Iowa Caucus, votes for DeSantis and Haley had increased to 21.2% and 19.1%, respectively. With the end of DeSantis’ campaign, Haley’s popularity at the polls finally increased significantly, with 43.2%, second to Trump’s 54%. Even with this growth, however, it is likely too late for Haley to swing a majority. In the past 40 years, no Republican candidate has lost both Iowa and New Hampshire and gone on to win the Republican nomination, and Haley is unlikely to break this trend given her recent polling.
Finally, the manner in which DeSantis dropped out of the race reinforced the likelihood of a Trump nomination. On Jan. 21, after announcing the suspension of his campaign, DeSantis stated in a video on social media platform X that “the majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” and he endorsed Trump “because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.” DeSantis, like other Republicans, has realized that Trump is and has been an unbeatable Republican favorite since 2016. The momentum Trump has built over the past decade, along with the hostility he and DeSantis have fostered against Haley, will make it impossible for Haley to overpower him for the Republican nomination.
