WAUKEE, Iowa — After spending much of the Republican presidential primaries flanked by lower polling rivals, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis will stand alone on the debate stage for the first time Wednesday as they mount an increasingly controversial effort to become the leading alternative to To become Donald Trump.
The stakes are high for both Haley, the former UN ambassador, and DeSantis, the governor of Florida. They hope a strong debate performance in Iowa will boost their campaigns in the final days before Monday’s caucuses, where a strong showing could provide much-needed momentum as the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination intensifies.
The moment is especially important for Haley, a politician long known for her disciplined approach to messaging. That reputation has recently been challenged after a series of blunders, including her failure to mention slavery as the root cause of the Civil War and a joke that New Hampshire voters will have a chance to “correct” the Iowa results ‘.
Despite all the attention on Haley and DeSantis, the leading frontrunner will once again be absent from the race. Trump, who is aiming to quickly secure his third consecutive Republican nomination, will skip CNN’s debate and appear on Fox News instead.
The debate will still offer Haley a chance to reset a campaign that has been scrutinized by everyone from her Republican rivals to President Joe Biden, a sign that her rivals in both parties see her as a rising candidate. While she will likely pay more attention to Trump as her allies argue she is the only person equipped to defeat him, DeSantis is expected to turn his focus to Haley.
“Now she’s in a situation where she’s under scrutiny, and it’s almost like every day she answers questions, something happens where she puts her foot in her mouth,” DeSantis told reporters Tuesday after speaking in a Fox News town hall had appeared.
After several debates packed with candidates likely to have minimal chances of winning the nomination, many expected caucusgoers said they planned to pay close attention to a debate with Trump’s top opponents.
Terry Snyder of Waukee, outside Des Moines, said she had advocated for Trump in 2016 but felt he had “too much baggage” this time. She wants to have a clearer picture without the crosstalk of a bigger stage.
“I get annoyed because they’re talking over each other, so you don’t learn anything,” Snyder said. “So hopefully with just two people it won’t be like that.”
Some of Haley’s strongest moments have come during the previous four debates, when she has battled all of her rivals on stage.
A CNN/UNH poll conducted in New Hampshire this week showed Haley could be closing in on Trump’s top spot in the state. About four in 10 likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire chose Trump, while about a third chose Haley.
While she has spent months answering questions at many of her campaign events, styled as town halls, where she Q&Hailing from the assembled crowd, Haley has rarely spoken to reporters after events about her events, held press conferences or done print interviews. She did not speak to reporters after her own Fox News town hall on Monday, a day before DeSantis’ appearance.
Haley would say a day after her original comment about the Civil War that “of course” slavery was a root cause. But she has been repeatedly asked about the comment, which has given her opponents more fodder.
DeSantis quickly tried to turn some of Haley’s words against her. He has repeatedly brought up her comment that New Hampshire would “correct” Iowa’s results — something Haley later said was a joke about the rivalry between the two early voting states.
After Haley was asked about her Civil War comments during a CNN town hall last week, DeSantis’ campaign posted a clip to and pointing to a quote from her response: “I had black friends growing up.”
Another video took Haley to task for her comment during a Fox News town hall on Monday night that she “never” said the retirement age was too low. DeSantis’ video used a clip from Haley’s August interview with Bloomberg, in which she said, “65 is way too low, and we need to raise that.”
Haley accuses DeSantis of lying about her “because he’s losing.”
Trump has also stepped up his attacks on Haley as she gains attention, saying slavery is “kind of an obvious answer” to the cause of the Civil War and adding an expletive to describe what he was thinking. In recent weeks, his campaign has accused her of not being conservative enough on immigration and that, while governor of South Carolina, she proposed raising the state’s gas tax as part of a broader budget package that ultimately failed accepted.
And Biden has also gone after her without mentioning her name. Appearing this week at a South Carolina church where a racist gunman killed nine Black parishioners in 2015, he said: “Let me be clear for those who don’t seem to know: slavery was the cause of the Civil War. There is no negotiation about that.”
The experience of answering hostile and sometimes hostile questions is essential for candidates vying for the White House, said Dave Wilson, a conservative political and communications strategist in South Carolina.
“Candidates must be prepared to be grilled by reporters, especially in the current media-driven political climate in 2024,” Wilson said. “When the cameras are always rolling, small blunders can have major consequences for sticking to the message.”
But some caucusgoers seemed unimpressed that Haley’s recent mistakes or inconsistencies are indicative of real problems.
“Yes, she should have said slavery,” said Haley supporter Mike O’Neil of Clive as he waited for her on a snowy Tuesday in Waukee. “But that question is a complex question, and it probably overanalyses and overstates issues, because there are many issues surrounding the Civil War. Slavery was a major issue.”
And Bill Kirk, a retired carpenter from Linden, Iowa, said Haley’s comment “wouldn’t mean anything to me.”
“I think she’s doing a lot better than a lot of people thought,” he said. “I don’t really know what the differences are between her and DeSantis. The only commercials I’ve seen are hers. It seems like he just doesn’t have the energy she has.”