Haley Breaks Taboo - Could Set It Up for Trump

Wolfgang Hansson  

Is the Trump Dam about to burst?  

Published: Less than 3 hours ago  

This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's. 

Donald Trump and Nikki Haley in 2018. Photo: Evan Vucci / AP 

COLUMNISTS  

A string of fearful men have stood on the sidelines, unwilling to challenge Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee next year. 

Finally a woman with sharp heels stepped forward.  

Nikki Haley's chances of winning the nomination may be considered small, but because she broke a taboo, we may soon see a number of contenders. 

When Donald Trump stepped out in record time last November and announced that he would run for president in 2024, his main purpose was to deter other contenders.  

Trump remains by far the most popular candidate among Republican voters, and anyone considering challenging him risks incurring the wrath of his core voters.  

In addition, they also risk being exposed to Trump's bullying styles, which usually make most people draw the shortest straw.  

Therefore, a number of potential candidates have been waiting for something to happen that changes the game plan or for someone else to step forward and take the first blow. 

It was Trump's former UN ambassador and former governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, 51, who broke the deadlock. This despite the fact that she previously said that she does not intend to stand in the presidential election if Trump runs. 

She justifies it by saying that the party is in great need of rejuvenation. Haley thinks it's time for a new generation to take over. She points out that she has both long and sharp heels, which she likes to use to attack the Democrats.

But fundamentally it is about something completely different.  

Many leading Republicans simply do not believe that Trump can defeat Joe Biden in a 2020 rerun. The former president is seen as having blown his chances by persisting in his patently false claims that Biden cheated his way to victory and by his way of encouraging supporters to storm the Congress on January 6, 2021. 

In the midterm elections, many of the candidates that Trump supported lost.  

Risk prosecution 

He is simply seen as too extreme to attract the middle-of-the-road voters required to win the race for the White House.  

Trump is also involved in various legal processes that could further hurt his winning chances until the November 2024 election. He faces prosecution for taking a large number of classified documents from the White House and then refusing to return them. The FBI had to raid his home in Palm Beach, Florida to get them back.   

Trump could also face trial for his way of trying to influence the 2020 election in the state of Georgia. Then he called the election officer and requested that he arrange for so many votes that Trump would win the state.  Nikki Haley's entry on the scene may encourage other potential candidates to take the plunge. Although it may take weeks or months before someone else thinks the timing is right.  

Trump's reaction to Haley standing has been surprisingly mild. He has even stuck some derogatory nickname on her. She was one of the few tone-setting staffers to leave her post in the Trump administration without harsh words. Now he is content to call her "overambitious".  

Most feared  

That could be because Trump doesn't see her as much of a threat. In the opinion polls that have been conducted, she is clearly at the bottom of the Republican field.  

The person Trump currently fears most of all is Florida Governor Ron De Santis. Or Ron "the hypocrite" as Trump calls him. DeSantis is a kind of Trump clone politically but without the same inflated personality.  

Trump's former vice president Mike Pence is also considering whether the situation is right to challenge his old boss. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is another possible opponent. 

Even if Trump's dream situation is that virtually no one will dare to challenge him, he can at the same time benefit if there is a very large Republican starting field in the primaries that begin in February next year. That is where the party's candidate is to be washed up. With many challengers taking votes away from each other, Trump's chances of getting the nomination increase. After all, no one can measure up to him when it comes to celebrity factor.  

The big question now is whether Nikki Haley's sharp heels are only creating a small crack in a strong dam or if the entire dam will soon break.  

The big Republican money donors are some of the many waiting to see what the outcome will be.