New Hampshire is Haley’s last, best shot

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct who is eligible to vote in the New Hampshire primary. We regret the error.

“The people of Iowa pick corn, the people of New Hampshire pick presidents,” said then–Gov. John Sununu in 1988. The New Hampshire primary is on Tuesday, but it sure seems like the picking has already been done. Last week, Donald Trump, the once and (likely) future Republican presidential nominee, cruised to a commanding victory in the Iowa caucuses.

Trump entered the primary as the frontrunner but his opponents, especially Ron DeSantis, banked on winning — or at least only narrowly losing — Iowa. That didn’t happen. Trump won 51 percent in the Hawkeye State. DeSantis came in second with 21 percent, Nikki Haley got third with 19 percent, and Vivek Ramaswamy won just under 8 percent and promptly dropped out and endorsed Trump.

For now, DeSantis and Haley are continuing their campaigns. Nationally, things look bleak for them: Trump leads among Republican primary voters by 50.7 points in the Decision Desk HQ/The Hill polling average.

But there is a glimmer of hope, for Haley at least, in New Hampshire. In the Granite State, Trump’s lead is a more modest 10.6 points. Haley has steadily climbed in the polls over the last few months, from 4.2 percent on Aug. 1 to 35 percent today. DeSantis’s support has fallen over the same period, from 13.9 percent to 5.8 percent; Trump has steadily polled in the mid-to-low forties, currently sitting at 45.6 percent.

There are a few factors behind Haley’s New Hampshire surge. Chris Christie was polling at around 10 percent in New Hampshire while running an explicitly anti-Trump campaign before dropping out; Haley is a natural second choice for many of his supporters. DeSantis has essentially given up on New Hampshire, switching his focus to South Carolina. More importantly, New Hampshire is an open-primary state.

The Democratic National Committee, at Joe Biden’s request, attempted to move the New Hampshire primary in favor of having South Carolina go first on February 3. But New Hampshire is holding its primary in January anyways, though no delegates will be awarded based on the results. Biden is technically not running in New Hampshire and is not on the ballot, though his supporters have organized a write-in campaign (which is expected to cause delays in the reporting of results).

Democrats Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and self-help author Marianne Williamson are on the New Hampshire ballot. But the two poll far behind Biden nationally, and what surveys we have indicate that they’re likely to finish behind him in New Hampshire too. Biden is all but guaranteed renomination, barring a health complication. And since the Democratic primary is for all intents and purposes over, plenty of registered independents could cross over and cast their ballots in the GOP primary, where their votes are more likely to make a difference. And those voters are overwhelmingly likely to favor Haley.

Nikki Haley is arguably the most moderate of the three major Republicans still in the race. Trump is, well, Trump. DeSantis has generally tried to outflank Trump from the right, criticizing Trump’s Covid policy and defending the six-week abortion ban he signed in Florida. Haley, by contrast, has argued that Republicans need to be “honest” about abortion and “find consensus” instead of focusing on proposals that “don’t even have the votes in the Senate.” I’ve seen some of her TV ads while watching the Patriots at home in Boston; she talks about unifying the country and touts polls showing her trouncing Biden in the general election.

Haley’s coalition of independents and educated, more moderate Republicans puts her in a relatively strong position going into New Hampshire. In our polling average, her deficit relative to Trump is relatively narrow; some polls show her tied with him or ahead. The modal outcome is still a Trump victory, but a Haley upset would not be that surprising.

Let’s say Haley wins New Hampshire. Then what? It’s possible that she gains enough momentum to turn the primary from coronation to competition. But most likely she goes on to lose every other state to Trump. Haley’s base is well-suited for New Hampshire; it is not well-suited for winning a Republican primary. A poll showed that the plurality of her supporters in Iowa would vote for Biden over Trump in the general. That poll also found that Haley’s net favorability among Iowa Republicans collapsed since August — the same period over which she’s surged in New Hampshire.

My guess is that these two data points are connected. As Haley has drawn more support from independents and more moderate Republicans, she’s jumped in the polls in New Hampshire. But that has created the impression among GOP base voters in other states that she’s a RINO, a “Republican in Name Only.” It’s a double-edged sword — but if Haley can walk that fine line, then perhaps she can turn a win in New Hampshire into a real shot at the nomination.

Milan Singh is a data science fellow at Decision Desk HQ and a sophomore at Yale College. Follow him @milansingh03.