Nikki Haley’s bid might not hurt Trump, but it could be fatal to Ron DeSantis

Former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced her bid for the 2024 Republican nomination for president on Tuesday -- avoiding any mention of her former boss and the only other Republican currently in the primary: former president Donald Trump, who lost the popular vote twice.

Ms Haley always had an uneasy relationship with Mr Trump. In 2016, she endorsed Marco Rubio, saying, “Donald Trump is everything I taught my children not to do in kindergarten.”

Of course, she changed her tune after Mr Trump won and she served as his ambassador to the United Nations. Afterward, conservatives frequently peddled the idea that she should replace Mike Pence as Mr Trump’s running mate in 2020, an idea that never came to fruition.

Then, after the January 6 insurrection, she told my friend Tim Alberta at Politico Magazine :“He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.” That infuriated the former president, who is already hitting out at her for announcing her run after she said she wouldn’t if he ran.

All of this means that Ms Haley stands little chance to win a presidential primary where Mr Trump still has a tight grip on the party. Tellingly, South Carolina’s current Governor Henry McMaster and the state’s senior Senator Lindsey Graham have thrown their weight behind the former president. But one person should absolutely worry about her candidacy: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

At this moment, Mr DeSantis is the GOP golden boy after he mostly kept the state open during the Covid-19 pandemic and his passing of a series of legislation targeting LGBTQ+ people, restricting abortion, picking a fight with Disney, and curtailing studies about African American history and racism. A former member of the House Freedom Caucus, Mr DeSantis is much more comfortable “owning the libs” and is far more fluent in fiscal conservative than Mr Trump ever was.

In order for him to win, he would need to consolidate the entire anti-Trump flank of the GOP. As of right now, most polls show Mr DeSantis trailing Mr Trump, with other candidates taking up a slice of the non-Trump chunk of the vote.

That number gets even more complex when broken down by state. In South Carolina, Ms Haley might get more than the three points she garners in a national poll. Couple that with the fact that South Carolina’s Tim Scott, whom she appointed to a Senate seat in 2013, is preparing a run for president, and Mr DeSantis has an even smaller chunk of the vote he can win over in the all-important Palmetto primary that consolidated Mr Trump’s momentum in 2016, John McCain’s in 2008 and George W Bush’s in 2000.

Mr Trump has also ramped up his criticisms of Mr DeSantis, implying he preys on teenage girls and reportedly even calling him “Meatball Ron.” This means that Ms Haley -- or another Republican challenger like Mr Scott, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- can tee up attacks on Mr DeSantis without getting their hands dirty by attacking Mr Trump.

Candidates who have little chance of winning have often used debates as a means to torpedo another candidate, as was the case when Chris Christie nuked Mr Rubio in 2016 or when Elizabeth Warren hammered Michael Bloomberg in a primary debate as her campaign crashed and burned.

In the end, the best favor Ms Haley could do for herself is significantly weaken Mr DeSantis in hopes that she could get back in Mr Trump’s good graces.