Nikki Haley’s path to victory in GOP primary could be through independent voters

The key to former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley‘s success in the first four early-nominating states of the 2024 primary race may be independent voters, who could upend at least two of the first four early-nominating states.

If Haley can capitalize on the independent bloc of voters, she could thwart former President Donald Trump‘s attempts to lock down the GOP nomination by winning the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

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The Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses only allow registered Republicans to participate in the GOP nominating contest, but independent voters have until the night of the caucus to register for either party. Haley faces stiff competition in the state from Trump and her chief second-place nemesis, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who has made winning in Iowa the key to his campaign.

Haley doesn’t need an outright win in Iowa, however. A third-place finish would be enough to propel her into the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary, where she recently received the endorsement of popular Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH).

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In the Granite State, voters take their time in deciding who to support, as do Iowans. Unlike the Hawkeye State, New Hampshire voters do not have to be registered as a Republican to participate in the primary. Theoretically, Democratic voters and independents could decide to vote for Haley to block Trump from an early-state win. President Joe Biden will not be on the ballot because Democrats chose to make South Carolina’s Feb. 3 primary the first nominating state on their calendar.

Due to the state’s noncompliance with the party’s new calendar, New Hampshire will lose delegates at the Democratic convention.

Political experts told the Washington Examiner the Sununu factor will likely bolster Haley among independent voters, who tend to lean either Republican or Democratic and can vote in either party’s primary, while limiting the impact of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who has campaigned heavily on winning the Granite State during the primary race.

“A lot of folks who say they’re independent in practice are pretty reliably voters for one party or the other. I think there’s a chunk of independents who are Democrats who don’t want to identify with the party or Republicans who don’t want to identify with the party,” said Christopher Galdieri, a political scientist at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. “But those are probably folks for whom Trump has been alienating. … Having Sununu endorse Haley and having that framed as a pretty explicit ‘Here’s the best way to stop Trump endorsement’ probably does give her a boost with those folks who tend to vote Republican but don’t like to identify as Republicans.”

David Winston, president of the Winston Group and a Republican pollster, on Sununu’s 2022 reelection race, referenced Sununu’s popularity not just with Republicans but with independent voters who make up around 40% of the vote in New Hampshire.

“This is a guy who won independents by 21 points, 59% to 38%,” Winston said of Sununu’s 2022 reelection race. “He also won Republicans 96% to 4%. I mean, he was able to do what everybody tries to do: overwhelmingly win Republicans and win independents by a sizable margin.”

If any 2024 rival was to stop Trump, it could be Haley — if she can consolidate New Hampshire independent voters and anti-Trump Republicans to give her a first or second-place finish in the primary. With at least 344,212 undeclared voters, the voting bloc is the largest in the state, outnumbering the 269,766 registered Republicans and 265,159 Democrats in New Hampshire. In October, 3,542 Democratic voters changed their registration to undeclared, and 408 Democrats flipped to registered as Republicans.

Still, Trump continues to dominate the primary race in national polls along with the first two early-nominating states. He currently polls at 60.5% in a RealClearPolitics poll average, while DeSantis is at 12.5%, Haley is at 12.3%, Vivek Ramaswamy is at 5%, and Christie is at 2.9%. In the most recent NBC News-Des Moines Register-Mediacom poll, Trump is at 51% among first-choice support from likely Iowa caucusgoers, whereas DeSantis is at 19%, Haley is at 16%, Ramaswamy is at 5%, and Christie is at 4%.

However, Haley’s campaign hasn’t abandoned Iowa, spending $10 million in ad buys in the first two primary contests next year. Her campaign does welcome independent voters who have soured on the trajectory of the Republican Party under Trump. “Republicans have lost the popular vote in 7 out of the last 8 presidential elections. Nikki wants to grow the party and bring more people in, and that absolutely includes independents,” said Ken Farnaso, a Haley spokesman, in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

Haley is also aided by an “Independents for Nikki” initiative from the Independents Moving the Needle super PAC launched after Thanksgiving. Also helping her case: last month, an Emerson College-WHDH poll of New Hampshire voters showed Haley surging to second place at 18%, above DeSantis at 9% but far below Trump at 49%.

“I think she may do well with independent Republicans. And then the question is, given that there’s really not a very exciting Democratic race since there’s no substantial challenger to Biden, and it’s only a beauty contest primary anyway, in New Hampshire, and Biden won’t be on the ballot — really the question is whether or not some Democrats who would like to see Trump defeated crossover and vote for Haley,” said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in the governance studies program and director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution.

“And that’s a possibility. Although that kind of strategic voting, everybody always thinks it’s going to happen and then it never really sort of does,” she continued. “We’ll have left to see with that one. But certainly, she will benefit from some independent voters. There’s no doubt about it.”

In Nevada, the primary season gets even more complicated due to the state’s dueling caucus on Feb. 8 and primary on Feb. 6. Only the caucus results will be considered by the state GOP to calculate delegates.

The state’s primary requires voters to be registered as either a Republican or Democrat, but same-day registration is allowed. For the Republican caucus, only registered Republicans are allowed to participate. The GOP candidates, meanwhile, are only allowed to participate in either the primary or the caucus. Trump, DeSantis, Ramaswamy, and Christie are on the caucus ballot, while Haley is on the ballot for the primary, meaning she effectively won’t be able to block Trump from winning the caucus.

Meanwhile, Haley’s competitors in the primary, former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), have dropped out, likely ensuring her win.

The uncertainty from Iowa and New Hampshire could bode well for Haley ahead of her home state primary, where she served as a two-term governor.

“If she does very well in New Hampshire, that will provide time for it really to have an impact on South Carolina where, of course, she has the potential to be strong,” said Richard Arenberg, senior fellow in international and public affairs and visiting political science professor at Brown University.

The South Carolina GOP primary on Feb. 24 is roughly a month after the New Hampshire primary and is an open primary state where voters don’t have to register with a party to participate. Depending on how successful Trump is before Feb. 24, Haley could use South Carolina to consolidate Republicans and voters who don’t want Trump to win the nomination in a last-ditch attempt before Super Tuesday on March 5.

“We’ll know by then if there are a large number of voters who are moving from Trump to some alternative, probably Haley,” Kamarck said.

Winston, the GOP pollster, said part of Haley’s success depends on whether she can reframe the narrative of the primary race. “To some degree, she’s got to make it a different discussion. And where she tends to be stronger is looking at how she does in terms of the general ballot matchups against Biden,” he said. “And so the question is, can she change the current political discourse into something that’s more favorable, talking about how each of them does against Biden? Having said that, I think that’s a slim window.”

A recent poll from the Wall Street Journal showed Haley beating Biden in a hypothetical matchup by 17 points, 51% to 34%. Her campaign seized on the advantage by releasing an ad this week on the poll.

Yet, Galdieri of Saint Anselm College warned that winning over independents and Republicans while Trump is in the lead will not be an easy task.

“The one caution is you’ve still got all those folks who are actual registered Republicans,” he said. “There have been so many candidates over the years and both parties who have pinned their hopes on the idea that independent voters are going to come out in huge numbers and make the difference. And that’s never really happened to anybody who has not named John McCain.”

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If Haley can survive in Iowa and prevail in New Hampshire, South Carolina could be the state that makes or breaks her candidacy. It wouldn’t be an unprecedented task as Biden’s 2020 campaign roared back to life when he won the Palmetto State’s primary, Kamarck pointed out.

“Joe Biden did not win, place, or show in either Iowa or New Hampshire, but he placed in Nevada and then he won in South Carolina,” Kamarck said. “So what you got to do is look at these four states together and say, ‘OK, who emerges out of these?’ We know Trump is strong. The only question is, is there anybody else?”