Trump’s Iowa lead grows as Nikki Haley makes New Hampshire competitive

Nikki Haley looks to be poised for an upset victory over Ron DeSantis in Iowa, but has no reason to feel comfortable.

The South Carolina governor led her Florida rival in a new Morning Consult poll of the Iowa caucuses released on Tuesday, less than a week before caucusing will take place. Her lead, however, was well within the poll’s margin of error — and well behind Donald Trump, the continued frontrunner for the nomination.

Ms Haley may actually be setting herself up for a mixed victory next week, if the newest poll holds true on Monday. She could pull off a surprise win over Mr DeSantis in a state where he has bet it all, only to find herself well behind the frontrunner in the first contest — by as far as 40 points, if the survey is accurate.

Such a dynamic would put the former ambassador in an interesting situation as she charges into New Hampshire. Polling of the second contest in the GOP nominating marathon shows a much tighter race between Mr Trump and Ms Haley, though the former president could find some wind for his sails with a strong performance in Iowa.

Ms Haley’s supporters hope that New Hampshire, which votes days after she will theoretically have just pulled off an upset in Iowa, will be the arena in which she bests Mr Trump for real. That expected victory, they presume, will catapult Ms Haley into the realm of true competition for the nomination itself, as Republican voters in other states (they hope) will give Ms Haley a second look — and take seriously her claim to represent the GOP’s best chance at beating Joe Biden.

After New Hampshire, it’s on to Nevada and South Carolina — where Ms Haley served as governor, and where she has her next best shot at overcoming Mr Trump’s lead.

Most of this remains theoretical, at least until Monday. With caucus-day fast approaching, the former ambassador and governor has shifted her focus to a last-minute push in Iowa. Her campaign has also come clearly under the gaze of Mr Trump, who has refocused his own campaign on disparaging the newly-surging Haley.

In the DeSantis camp, things have reportedly been gloomy for months. Now, the beleaguered Floridian faces the prospect of a third-place finish in the state where he invested more time and political capital than did his opponents, even picking up a crucial endorsement from the governor. He remains the only candidate to have visited all of Iowa’s 99 counties, too — making his possible downfall next week all the more crushing should it occur.

One potential wrench in the machinery remains — the lower-performing GOP candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie. While Mr Christie is barely a factor in Iowa, Mr Ramaswamy polled at 9 per cent in the Morning Consult survey; not high enough to matter, but enough caucusgoers to cause real shifts in the dynamic of a second or third round of caucusing, as the losers are eliminated.

As the candidates enter the last stretch of what may very well be Iowa’s last first-in-the-nation caucus, the question remains for Ms Haley: is this the moment she makes it a two-person race? Or does the Trump alternative head into New Hampshire weighed down by rivals and see her own ambitions snuffed out by mathematical realities?