"Being the most powerful journalist in America is like being the tallest building in Topeka," quipped pundit George Will at a Palm Beach speaking engagement on Wednesday evening. Will may have been aiming for modesty in response to a remark about his prominence, but his simile also reflected an unavoidable truth: the Washington GOP establishment, of which Will has long been a part, is in crisis.
Will, a longtime conservative who is now a registered independent and voted for Joe Biden in 2020, was reluctant to weigh in on his former party's prospects in 2024, even as former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley squared off one-on-one on CNN against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in a fifth GOP debate that same evening.
The debate accomplished little apart from once again reminding voters of all inclinations that former president Donald J. Trump remains the overwhelming Republican favorite, with most polls showing national leads of 50 points or more over his next closest rival, a distant second place for which Haley and DeSantis are now scrambling at around 12 percent each.
Issues in the debate were scarce, as Haley and DeSantis mostly accused each other of lying about their positions. DeSantis continued to question Haley's credentials as a true conservative given her Washington insider connections and rising support from the establishment GOP. When it came to Trump, who eschewed the proceedings to hold a separate town hall on Fox News, the two second-place contenders repeated their earlier caution, for the most part avoiding direct attacks on the former president while arguing that his legal challenges could imperil Republican chances should he become the nominee.
Like many anti-Trump Republicans, however, Will grasped at a recent CNN poll that showed Haley trailing Trump by only seven points in the New Hampshire primary, which will be held on January 23. The CNN poll found that Trump leads Haley in that state 39 percent to 32 percent, still a decisive margin but a substantially smaller one than in CNN's earlier polling.
Forlorn establishment Republicans have seized onto this result with special enthusiasm now that former New Jersey governor Chris Christie has suspended his campaign. Their hope is that the 12 percent of New Hampshire Republicans who expressed support for Christie, whose campaign consisted of little more than repetitive diatribes against Trump, will join with Haley's 32 percent to best the former president in an early contest and give Haley the momentum she needs to mount a real challenge to Trump.
The mathematical hypothesis to which the GOP establishment clings may well be a miscalculation. A poll conducted by Emerson College/WHDH, which collected data almost consecutively with CNN, gave Trump a 16-point lead, with Christie—then still in the race—at 12 percent. Even if every Christe supporter in the Granite State switched to Haley, the numbers would not add up to victory for her. A more recent poll by The Hill, released on Thursday, is even worse news for Haley, showing Trump with an almost 20-point lead, with a phantom Christie again polling an insufficient 12 percent. A FiveThirtyEight average of polls released the same day, which leaves Christie out of the race, shows Trump solidly beating Haley by 12 points.
Christie himself seems to be aware of his impotence to help the former South Carolina governor. On a hot mic, he predicted Wednesday that she will be "smoked" by Trump in the contest to come.
Even if the stray CNN poll turns out to be the only accurate one, Haley still faces a hard climb. In Iowa, which will hold its caucuses on Monday, she trails Trump by an average of 35 points, according to polls consulted by RealClearPolitics.
While Iowa has rarely been dispositive of the final result in Republican nomination contests in recent competitive election years, a blowout Trump victory there will likely dampen enthusiasm for his remaining rivals down the road. Should Haley survive, she will face yet another difficult obstacle in her home state of South Carolina, where local Republicans largely revile her. An Emerson poll released last week shows Trump with a commanding 29-point lead ahead of the state's February 24 primary.
Losing catastrophically—or at all—in her home state will not bode well for Haley's candidacy. As excited as Never Trumpers may be for New Hampshire—where they may well be disappointed anyway—the rest of the country presents a Trumpian wall that may well be insuperable.
Paul du Quenoy is President of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute. The views expressed are the author's own.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
