Nikki Haley seems to be having her moment right now, but will it last, and can she beat Trump? Tim Scott left the dance, but his supporters seemed to have drifted to the DeSantis camp. Vivek isn’t ready, and I don’t even know why Chris Christie is on the stage. The others, like Burgum and Hutchinson, are only on the ride for public relations. They’re not serious contenders at all.

So this leaves Trump and DeSantis. But now Nikki is looking weirdly viable? And I don’t ask that in a good way.

I am probably in the minority here, but I think Trump’s polls are, well, fake. I don’t believe them for one second. I don’t know why; I just don’t. And honestly, I thought Ron DeSantis would be doing way better than he is right now. I am kind of surprised.

Nikki And The Polls

But Nikki Haley is clacking her way up the runway. I want to say I am shocked, but really, I’m not. I’ve got a bad feeling about this one. I’m afraid she may become the GOP’s 2024 Presidential candidate. Do primaries really count these days anyway?

The following is from Slate.com (I know, I know), but tell me where they are wrong.

This fall, she’s up almost 10 points in Iowa and 15 points in New Hampshire; she also maintains a strong position in her native state. She keeps winning polls that ask voters who they think won the most recent Republican debate. She’s pulling donors away from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—and is even possibly on the verge of landing the support of big-fish billionaire Ken Griffin. Her squishy, poll-informed position on abortion—combined with her relative youth and her canny decision not to have been president when inflation went wild—would likely make her a good general election candidate against Joe Biden. – Slate.com

We still have a long way to go, and it seems like the media has already forgotten about Nikki’s big brother’s ideas on social media and the First Amendment.

And now, she is speaking “her truth” regarding her stance on pro-life issues. In the video below, she tells her truth at about the one-hour mark.

I don’t know about you, but I cannot stand that term, my truth. And Ron didn’t like it either. Good for him for calling her out. While I have to agree with her on making incremental progress with pro-life issues, I just can’t stand that she seems to put so much emphasis on what the United Nations thinks about her thoughts and ideas.

“Did not go over well with the crowd,” @RonDeSantis says about Nikki Haley using “my truth” when talking about abortion last night.

“No, it’s not your truth or this person’s truth. There’s the truth.” pic.twitter.com/PSiYnoBGxs

— DeSantis War Room (@DeSantisWarRoom) November 18, 2023

But let me get us out of the weeds here and back on topic. This New York Times article maps out the possibilities for each candidate.

She is not polling anywhere close to the highs DeSantis hit during his stint as the Trump-slayer, and if you use the Register-led poll to game out a future winnowing, you see that her own voters would mostly go to DeSantis if she were to drop out — but if DeSantis drops out, a lot of his voters would go to Trump. – New York Times

Again, we still have a ways to go. A lot could happen between now and when the rubber starts hitting the road in 2024.

Coming Up

There is another debate on December 6th in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (Roll Tide), where the moderators will be:

• Megyn Kelly from “The Megyn Kelly Show” on SiriusXM
• Eliana Johnson from The Washington Free Beacon
• Elizabeth Vargas from NewsNation

This next debate may knock out a few, but the top three will obviously remain: Trump, DeSantis, and now Nikki Haley. Who knows what will happen with Trump and all of his legal woes. DeSantis needs to keep punching and going forward. And Nikki, well, I guess she’ll keep waving her arms and hands in front of the cameras.

The few people I run around with on X (Twitter) tell me that Nikki Haley is a hard pass for them. I wonder if that’s how the majority of Americans feel? Or does it matter because we all know it’s the big media driving political campaigns anymore? And while I wrote a blog post here about how Nikki Haley isn’t horrible, she still is not getting my vote.

I can’t hold my nose and vote for her even if she becomes the candidate. I realize what this could mean. But tell me how we are going to unite and win this thing. And not just win this thing to keep the status quo, but win this thing to bring America back from destruction. I’m listening.

Feature Image: Gage Skidmore/Nikki Haley/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0