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The harsh reality confronting Nikki Haley as she prepares to launch her 2024 GOP presidential bid — and the others that follow suit — is the contest has already turned into a two-person race between former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis have dominated polls that show they both have a leg up on their potential rivals when it comes to their popularity and status as household names. It puts them in a tier all their own.
Craig Robinson, an Iowa-based GOP watchdog, said it will be an enormous challenge for the lesser-known “B-level actors” to break through in the race with the two heavyweights crowding the political ring.
The nomination battle will kick off in earnest only after Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis start engaging in Iowa and the other early states or faceoff on the debate stage, he said.
“There is staring contents at the top between Trump and DeSantis, and at the bottom, there are all these real eager beavers raring to get going, but they don’t have the juice to fire it up and really get it going,” Mr. Robinson said. “You have two heavyweights who are like I might not engage until August or September.”
A recent Monmouth University survey showed Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis were far and away the first names on the tip of the minds of Republican voters when asked who they would like to see as the Republican nominee for president.
Ms. Haley barely registered, putting her in the same boat as former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Out of the 566 Republicans that responded, 66% of them named Mr. Trump or Mr. DeSantis as their top-of-mind preferred pick, 24% did not know, and the remaining 10% was spread out among the lower-tiered contenders.
“Right now it looks like any other candidate besides Trump and DeSantis would likely play a spoiler role at best, but it’s not clear yet how that will play out,” said Patrick Murray, director
Monmouth University Polling Institute. “For example, Trump has relatively stronger support among evangelicals. But he could actually do better in a state like New Hampshire with fewer evangelical voters if the other candidates split the non-evangelical vote leading to lower support for DeSantis.”
“That won’t come into focus, though, until we know who is actually in the field,” he said.
Asked by The Washington Times how big of a challenge it will be for anybody not named Trump or DeSant to breakout, Dave Kochel, an Iowa-based GOP strategist, said it will be “hard unless the media decides to cover them.”
“That’s going to be on you guys,” Mr. Kochel said.
Mr. DeSantis is expected to launch a White House bid after the Flordia legislature adjourns. Mr.Trump, meanwhile, has had the field to himself since jumping into the race days after the 2022 midterm elections.
The action will pick up Wednesday after Mrs. Haley launches her bid in Charleston, South Carolina. From there, Mrs. Haley is scheduled to make her first official stops as a candidate in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire and then Iowa, home to the caucuses that have been the traditional kick-off to the nomination contests.
Mrs. Haley’s star has burned bright in the eyes of Republicans who celebrated her rise as the first female, minority, governor of South Carolina, and the role she played as Mr. Trump’s lead envoy to the U.N.
Mrs. Haley has signaled she plans to make the case for new leadership and generational change following a series of election setbacks, including on Mr. Trump’s watch.
She is embracing the underdog label and pointing to his electoral success while warning people to underestimate her at their own risk.
“Haley is jumping in because she has the operation and she’s ready,” said a person who is familiar with Mrs. Haley’s thinking. “She will contrast her vision for a strong and proud American with Joe Biden’s weak and woke record.”
Expect Mrs. Haley to focus on restoring American pride and combatting liberals’ embrace of socialism and defeatism.
“We’re seeing a generation being taught to hate Americans,” the person said. “This is the greatest county on Earthy. That’s her message, and her personal story is proof of that.”
Mrs. Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants and married mother of two children, teased her announcement with a dramatic video this week featuring Charles Mackay’s “No Enemies” poem as a way to beef up her image as a doer.
The video includes shots of the Statue of Liberty and the Marine Corps War Memorial and closes with a video clip of Ms. Haley saying: “I wear heels. It is not for a fashion statement, it is because if I see something wrong, I am going to kick them every single time.”
Voters are still getting to know Ms. Haley. The Monmouth survey showed more Republicans had heard of Rep. George Santos, the embattled congressman from New York who lied to voters about nearly everything on his resume.
The good news for Mrs. Haley is that those who know her tend to like her and she has room to grow.
In the Monmouth survey, close to half of Republicans said they held a favorable view of Ms. Haley, compared to 11% who had an unfavorable view of her, and 41% who either had no opinion or did not know her.
Mr. Trump welcomed the news of Mrs. Haley’s pending bid by resharing a video in which she vowed not to run against Mr. Trump if he ran for president.
For the most part, though, Mr. Trump has trained his fire at Mr. DeSantis, including resharing a photograph on social media that accused the Florida governor of drinking with underage women as a teacher, and labeling him as a “groomer.”
Mr. DeSantis received higher favorability marks from voters in the Monmouth survey with 18% of respondents giving Mr. Trump poor marks, compared to 6% for Mr. DeSantis.
