100 help plan
Since last summer, the 2024 "invisible primary" (editor's note: "primary" refers to the process by which candidates from both parties build momentum and raise campaign funds for themselves before the primary election in the United States, which has a great impact on the candidate's final nomination within the party) has been under continuous attention. Now, with six weeks to go before the Iowa primary, four conclusions can be drawn: First, Donald Trump is still in the absolute lead in the Republican primary;Second, this Republican primary was a "battle for second place" from the start, because only by uniting all other Republicans would there be a chance to defeat Trump;Third, only Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, are currently strong contenders for second place;Fourth, in this battle for second place, Haley's advantage is even more obvious.
In a political contest, the more a candidate is attacked by his opponent in a debate, the more he or she is in the leadAt the beginning of the fourth Republican debate, DeSantis boasted that he was a "delivers" candidate and attacked Haley as a "c**ed" candidate. Subsequently, Vivek Ramaswamy, an Indian-American entrepreneur and politician (one of the party candidates in the Republican primary), attacked Haley for her recent endorsement of several Wall Street billionaires, suggesting that she would be manipulated by these big entrepreneurs. In response, Haley easily defused these challenges by saying, "Thank you for getting me more attention."
In the fourth debate of the Republic, Haley (first from left) stood out and became the target of Ramaswamy (second from right) and DeSantis (first from right). Christie (second from left) supported Haley and stood up to "the man who can't be named" (Trump).
However, the attacks on Haley continued. Ramaswamy continues to maliciously accuse Haley of corruption, while DeSantis repeats over and over again the "various studies" he has done to attack Haley. Although his analysis seems "nuanced", it is confusing. In contrast, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (one of the Republican primaries) garnered enough support to continue the debate. He defended Haley during the debate, and the two had a friendly interaction after the debate. This has led to speculation that in New Hampshire, where Christie is more influential, he might support Haley in the primaries. Christie's role in this contest has been to attack Trump's weaknesses in order to weaken his popularity, and he himself will not be nominated, and Ramaswamy does not seem to be able to translate his wealth and aggressiveness into approval or popularity in the primaries.
None of the candidates, except Christie, dared to speak of Trump. Considering the solid foundation Trump has in the party, this is a sensible campaign strategy. However, Haley seemed to have found the best strategy against Trump in her final remarks at the end of the debate. She said after lamenting the dire state of the United States under Biden"You can't defeat a chaotic Democrat with a chaotic Republican Party, and the culprit behind the chaos within the Republican Party is none other than Donald Trump."
Haley promoted herself by attributing Biden and Trump's mistakes to "causing chaos in America."
Obviously, according to the Brookings Institution's tracking,Haley has already jumped to second place in this "** primary". The first analytical metric is the mention rate. Recently, Haley's mentions have increased by 200%, while her competitors' mentions have decreased. Yet Trump, relying on his dramatic performance in court and his huge lead in the polls, still garnered a great deal of attention. Trump enjoys an average of 114 per day83 headlines, while Haley only had 1926 pcs.
The second measure is campaign finance. While official data on this will not be released until the end of December, when candidates file their returns to the Federal Election Commission, there is evidence to suggest thatHaley's fundraising efforts were well underway. On Nov. 28, she gained support from the Koch Organization, a longtime supporter of right-wing liberalism and one of the Republican Party's main patrons. Named after the billionaire Koch brothers, the organization has been funding conservative causes for years. The Koch family's support provides Haley with a credible endorsement, grassroots advocacy, and the political action committees they lead (editor's note: Political Action Committee Pac, a type of organization that raises money for political activism by collecting money from a large number of individuals and then deciding which candidates' campaign contributions will be made to). This support not only provided Haley with money, but also guaranteed the organizational strength she needed to run for office.
As of the results of the Republican primary on December 13, Trump (purple line) is far ahead with 61With 5% support, Haley (green line) is gradually catching up with DeSantis (pink line), and the two are already very close. **abc news
What's more, other deep-pocketed Republicans, fed up with the chaos Trump has wrought, have also backed Haley with Koch's endorsement. On the one hand, Koch's support was important to Haley's primaries in the early states (editor's note: "early states" are states where people vote in primaries before "Super Tuesday" in early March, traditionally including Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina). On the other hand, if Haley makes some progress in these early states, she can buy ads in the next string of expensive "Super Tuesday" states. (Editor's note: Super Tuesday is the Tuesday in February or March of the United States, when multiple states hold candidate primaries at the same time.) On that day, multiple state congresses elected candidates from both parties at the same time).
The third metric is social**. All Republican candidates have seen an increase in their followers on platform X (Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram. Ramaswamy's followers continue to increase substantially, but the absolute total remains small and does not seem to translate into an advantage in his campaign.
Haley's popularity has grown, and she is now ranked No. 5 in the nation in campaign funding and growing.
The final indicator is the polls in these all-important early-election states, where Haley is gaining the most momentum. In a fivethirtyeight (538) nationwide poll, Trump came in with 59The 6% advantage was far ahead, but in Iowa, his lead was significantly reduced to just 459%, a decrease of 137%。DeSantis was second, followed by Haley. However, neither of them exceeded 20% in support.
However, New Hampshire is the state where Haley's advantage is more pronounced. Trump's lead in the state is even smaller, at just 447% approval rating. Since mid-October, Haley has been solid in second place, Christie is third and DeSantis is fourth, but like Iowa, none of the other candidates has more than 20 percent of the vote.
Haley's rise within the Republican Party has attracted attention, and Haley has an advantage in the four early-election states marked in red (from left to right: Nevada, Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire).
In Nevada, only Haley will run in the primaries on the Republican side, and Trump is expected to win comfortably in the caucus primaries, which are clearly in Trump's favor (Editor's note: Nevada uses both primaries and caucuses primaries, but the local Republican Party does not recognize the primaries). Haley will not be nominated by the Republican Party if she ends up in the state's primary, so Nevada's Republican primary is only symbolic). The third major primary was in South Carolina. Trump's average poll in the state is just over 50 percent, with Haley in second and DeSantis in third. However, given that this is Haley's hometown, a disappointing performance in the state could seriously affect her performance in the Super Tuesday primaries that follow.
This debate is supposed to be the last one hosted by the Republican National Committee. However, several debates seem to have fulfilled their mission. Haley's performance in these debates undoubtedly put her ahead of her other contenders and managed to move into second place, but she still trailed Trump by a wide margin. As her campaign moves from radio to on-the-ground, she must turn her vocals into more votes. She must seize the opportunity now to thwart Trump's campaign and turn the chaos and disorder he has created into her own campaign advantage.
Yesterday's Trump's deputy, tomorrow's Trump's adversary.