Nikki Haley’s main closing argument to 2024 voters undercut by latest polling

A new survey threatens Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley‘s argument that she is the sole 2024 candidate who can defeat President Joe Biden in next year’s election in the final two weeks before the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses.

A YouGov poll released on Wednesday showed Biden tied in a hypothetical matchup against former President Donald Trump 44% to 44%. But in a matchup against Haley, Biden beats the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador by 5 percentage points, 41% to 36%, well beyond the poll’s 3% margin of error.

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While the poll may be an outlier, as Haley leads Biden by 3 points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, it comes shortly after a rare misstep by Haley during a town hall event last week and is in direct contrast to repeated comments Haley and her campaign have blasted to voters while barnstorming in Iowa and New Hampshire. In a campaign email sent out on Tuesday, Haley bragged she was beating Biden.

“The polls show I’m the only candidate crushing Joe Biden by 17 POINTS,” the email, which included the bolded emphasis, read about a Wall Street Journal poll released last month that showed Haley defeating Biden 51% to 34%. “AND, we’re continuing to rise to the top!”

On Wednesday, SFA Fund Inc., the super PAC supporting Haley’s presidential campaign, released two ads in New Hampshire, one of which again bragged about Haley beating Biden by 17 points. The results are “proof that Biden’s policies are not working and the American people are ready for new leadership in Washington,” the super PAC wrote in an email announcing the ads.

In a Wednesday morning Newsmax appearance, Haley referenced the poll again. “If you look at any of those head-to-heads against Biden, Trump, head to head, on a good day, they’re even; he might be up by 2. Wall Street Journal showed he’s up by 4,” she said. “I’m in every one of those same general election polls. I defeat Biden by 17 points — 17 points. That’s bigger than the presidency. That’s when you’re winning governorships, the House, the Senate, all the way to the school board.”

This follows two previous ads Haley’s campaign rolled out in December after the Wall Street Journal poll was released. “With Nikki Haley at the top of the ticket, Republicans will retire Joe Biden, retain the House, win the Senate, and win races up and down the ballot,” a Haley spokesman told the Washington Examiner at the time.

Other polls have also shown Haley besting Biden in hypothetical matchups, bolstering her claims she is the most viable candidate to face Biden next year. Yet the YouGov poll, conducted Dec. 31 through Jan. 2, shows a troubling sign for the White House hopeful after facing severe backlash last week for failing to mention slavery as a primary cause of the Civil War during a town hall in New Hampshire.

Charlie Neibergall/AP

Most of her GOP rivals pounced on the gaffe. But it was Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) who clobbered Haley the hardest, another sign of the heated battle between the two candidates for second-place status in the primary.

“I just think that this shows this is not a candidate that’s ready for prime time,” DeSantis taunted Haley in the aftermath. “She’s gotten a pretty free ride from a lot of the corporate press. The minute that she faces any type of scrutiny, she tends to cave.”

Haley has since cleaned up her comments, stressing that slavery was an original cause of the Civil War. But in the final days before the first voters decide who should become the GOP’s next standard-bearer, the blunder has threatened to derail her campaign’s momentum.

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The YouGov poll also shows Biden beating DeSantis 44% to 41%, within the 3% margin of error.

The Washington Examiner reached out to the Haley campaign for comment.