Trump needs some of Nikki Haley’s voters

The hard math is clear for Nikki Haley. Even as she overperformed many polls that had her struggling to top 30 percent in her home state, the overall path ahead only gets harder — and thanks to significant Republican rule changes that increased the number of winner-take-all states, Donald Trump should have the nomination officially locked up within a month. And while donor money can keep Haley afloat through that moment and perhaps beyond, she has lost the backing of the Koch machine, which is shifting its resources to lower level contests.

So what lessons, if any, should we take from Haley’s performance, and the fact that she ended up the last woman standing against a Trump nomination that has seemed inevitable for months? The overall takeaway is that Trump has a problem with the same portion of the coalition that proved difficult for Republicans to win in 2020 and 2022: namely, college graduates, non-evangelical women and people who don’t think he won the 2020 election. 

The real problem for these voters is that they tend to be more positive about the economic situation than others in the coalition. If you’re largely insulated from the consequences of Joe Biden’s agenda on inflation, and if your retirement account has tracked with Wall Street, things just don’t seem as bad as they do for your average middle-class family. The hit you take from grocery and energy prices is felt, but not as severely. And if you happen to also be in the category that put a Ukraine flag sticker on your car, the foreign policy agenda of people around Trump (though oddly, not Trump himself!) may give you pause. Issues such as the border and crime in cities are certainly hot points for Democrats, but Republican inability to message around issues like abortion and IVF are going to be exploited by the media to make you hesitate.

This is the case at the moment. But it doesn’t mean it will remain the case in the fall. As Joe Biden’s decline continues and potentially accelerates, the possibility of Trump becoming the more stable candidate is actually quite real, assuming he sounds the more subdued, serious notes that he’s been doing of late. And the vice presidential choice is important as well — perhaps not enough to win you over as a voter, but avoiding an off-putting or inherently silly choice (Vivek Ramaswamy comes to mind — the worst choice by far for these voters) could prove enough to rationalize another Trump term.

The most important thing is for Trump, and for those around him, to recognize that they need to win a certain portion of these voters, and that turning them off for a general election is a real problem. Trump’s surrogates don’t need to make these voters feel all warm and fuzzy. But they do need to make the 2024 version of Trump the kind of stable candidate he’s shown the potential to be when he’s not obsessing over personal faults and vengeance against his enemies. Keeping that trick going is key.