Is Donald Trump Starting to Get Nervous About Nikki Haley?

For Hilary Clinton, there was “Crooked Hillary.” For Jeb Bush, “Low-Energy Jeb.” And now, as 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley rises in the polls, it appears that she too has not been spared. A Donald Trump–aligned super PAC has dubbed the former UN ambassador “high tax Haley” in a new ad that debuted in New Hampshire last month, dubiously accusing Haley of introducing a gas tax hike during her time as South Carolina governor. “New Hampshire can’t afford Nikki ‘High Tax’ Haley,” a narrator states in the spot. The ad, aired by MAGA Inc., marked the first time the PAC has spent money attacking Haley, according to the Daily Beast.

In turn, a pro-Haley super PAC released an ad accusing the Trump PAC of smearing her record on taxes “because Trump knows Haley’s the only one who can beat him.” Still, Haley has largely remained docile. Even as she trails Trump by huge margins nationally and in early primary states, Haley has declined to say definitively whether she would serve in a second Trump administration and vowed to pardon the former president of any potential crimes should she win the presidency.

“If he is found guilty, a leader needs to think about what’s in the best interest of the country,” the candidate said last week at a New Hampshire campaign event. “What’s in the best interest of the country is not to have an 80-year-old man sitting in jail that continues to divide our country. What’s in the best interest of the country would be to pardon him so that we can move on as a country and no longer talk about him.” 

Trumpworld’s focus on New Hampshire is telling: Polling in second place in the second-in-the-nation primary state, Haley has amassed more support there than anywhere else. An American Research Group survey from December even found Haley trailing by just four points in New Hampshire, which was well within the poll’s margin of error. The shock survey led Trump to describe its data as “fake” and “Just another scam!” (Trump has maintained double-digit leads in many of the other recent polls out of New Hampshire.)  

While Haley logged another solid debate performance last month and has enjoyed steady polling and fundraising gains, her campaign suffered a spell of turbulence last week, when she suggested that slavery was not the primary cause of the Civil War. She has since attempted to play cleanup, telling a New Hampshire radio host Thursday, “Yes, I know it was about slavery. I am from the South.”