Hutchinson Out of Race, Haley Out of Debate

It’s been 36 hours since Donald Trump won the Iowa Caucuses, and we’ve had some developments.

One is that we’ve lost another candidate. After a less than ideal 0.2% of the vote in the Iowa caucuses, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson has dropped out of the race. Something about finishing sixth in a field with five major candidates seemed to seal the deal.

And so now, three months after Presidential Politics For America said we’re down to three candidates that matter, we have only those three candidates left. The extent to which two of them still matter is up for debate. I’m bearish. If there’s any hope for a competitive primary moving forward, either Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley needs a New Hampshire surge to either finish within a few points of Trump or beat him outright.

Yesterday, Nikki Haley made a surprising decision to back out of remaining debates that don’t feature Trump. (There had been two scheduled in New Hampshire.) Debates had been the primary reason why Haley became a top-three candidate for the nomination, so it’s an odd choice to abandon the medium on the eve of her strongest state. DeSantis pounced on the decision, tweeting, “I won’t snub New Hampshire voters like both Nikki Haley and Donald Trump, and plan to honor my commitments. I look forward to debating two empty podiums in the Granite State this week.” He is now framing his opponents as running “basement campaigns,” a reference to Joe Biden’s 2020 effort.

So why did Haley withdraw from remaining debates? I would guess most people agree with her underlying logic: the debates without Trump have become increasingly pointless. Haley and DeSantis have had a handful of debates now, and the last one they couldn’t help but attack each other all night when their true opponent stayed clothed in bubble wrap. I thought that last debate was Haley’s worst of the cycle, and the awkward one-on-one format is probably why. She didn’t want a repeat, and this decision sends a message that Trump, not DeSantis, is her ultimate opponent.

And yet, we may see this decision as an unforced error. After leading DeSantis in the Iowa polls heading into the caucuses, Haley finished behind him. A month or two ago that would have been seen as a good result, but after DeSantis beat his polling by nearly 5 points, he seems to have taken back a bit of momentum. What is Haley’s plan to seize it back?

She may have become over-reliant on a friendly media. She’s benefitted from mostly positive coverage, as her consensus-building approach to political rhetoric stands in marked contrast to her opponents’ my-way-or-I-hate-you brand of politics. Of course, this friendly coverage would evaporate if she ever became the nominee. She’s actually a deeply conservative politician, and Democrats and their allies in the media would remind us of that once the Trump crisis has passed. We aren’t that far removed from a competent and normal Mitt Romney getting branded as the working class’s greatest enemy, only to now be counted among America’s bravest politicians.

The problem is that Haley can’t count on media to deliver a Republican Primary victory. If anything, being the media’s favorite candidate makes most Republicans look at her more skeptically, as if it’s a symptom of her impurity. Even if as a nominee she could make inroads with women and suburbia to deliver Republicans’ first popular vote in 20 years and turn that into down-ticket success is irrelevant if she can’t be trusted by MAGA. She must show conservatives she’s one of them, and a debate is the way to do it. Otherwise, the sheer inertia out of Iowa will result in another Trump win, which would all but clinch the nomination.

And even that sets aside that New Hampshire voters take their responsibility seriously. Over the next six days the anti-Trump voters in the state will look to see who is their last hope to lead the party in a different direction. Haley’s decision to avoid the debates will signal to some that it’s not her. I think she’s about to fall flat.

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Today’s composite image was made possible by Gage Skidmore, who I’m starting to think is the only political photographer in the world.