Republican candidates' sprint before primary election

Hoping to defeat Trump, Republican candidates like Haley and DeSantis are focusing their efforts in the final weeks before the first primary rounds take place.

President Joe Biden is enjoying a year-end vacation in the US Virgin Islands, before entering a year that will decide whether he will join the one-term presidential club. Meanwhile, Republican candidates are in the final stretch of the primary election, choosing the party's candidate for the 2024 White House race.

After a short Christmas break, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis returned to the campaign trail, holding events in Iowa and New Hampshire, the opening states of the US election year.

Iowa is scheduled to hold its Republican caucuses on January 15. The first-in-the-nation Republican primary in New Hampshire will take place a week later.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks at a campaign event in Iowa on February 20. Photo: Reuters

Rising support in recent polls and donor enthusiasm have opened the door to hope for Ms. Haley to become the most trusted candidate in the state of New Hampshire.

However, CNN analyst Stephen Collinson said that with former President Donald Trump still dominating the Republican race, Ms. Haley needs to find a way to make voters turn their backs on Mr. Trump if she does not want to be just second in the race.

The former US ambassador is adopting a strategy of indirectly criticizing Mr. Trump as an agent of chaos in the US. She does not exploit the criminal trials targeting the former president or the effort to overturn the 2020 election. Haley does not directly attack the former president so as not to offend many of his Republican supporters.

"Even if that tactic works in New Hampshire, she will still face a big challenge in her home state of South Carolina in the primary election late next month, where Mr. Trump is very popular," Collinson warned.

In the coming days, Ms. Haley is expected to make several appearances with New Hampshire Governor Chris Sunun, who endorsed her and has long argued that the primary in that state will shape the Republican race, beginning to overshadow Mr. Trump.

Haley is closing the gap with Trump in New Hampshire. A survey by Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire shows that 30% of Republicans support Haley, 14% less than Trump. That 30% is double the support level Haley had in a poll three months ago. The 14% is also the smallest margin of support for any candidate compared to Trump in the state.

Observers say Haley's recent surge in support is largely due to wealthy suburban intellectuals who have grown tired of Mr. Trump's harsh rhetoric and legal troubles.

If the former South Carolina governor wants to go further and have a chance of beating Mr Trump in the Republican nomination, she must appeal to more rural, middle-class or working-class voters, according to pollsters.

Before the Iowa caucuses began on January 15, Ms. Haley also made campaign trips to areas that supported Mr. Trump in the state, including very conservative areas.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on December 6. Photo: AFP

Governor Ron DeSantis was once considered a formidable opponent of Mr. Trump. However, Mr. DeSantis had a rather difficult 2023 with a somewhat clumsy and ineffective campaign.

DeSantis plans to focus his efforts on Iowa for the next two and a half weeks. DeSantis, who has visited all 99 Iowa counties, will begin his statewide campaign this week with events in Ankeny and Marion. He will then appear with Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has endorsed him, in Clayton County, in eastern Iowa.

An Iowa poll in early December showed Mr. DeSantis trailing Trump by 32 percentage points. The poll found that 51% of likely Republican caucus voters said Mr. Trump was their top choice among seven potential candidates, while 19% chose DeSantis and 16% chose Haley.

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy got 5% support, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had 4%, while all the others got 1% or less.

Former US President Trump at a campaign rally in New Hampshire on December 16. Photo: AFP

In both early primary states, polls in recent months have shown Mr Trump remains the front-runner.

Trump's strong support among Republican voters, his influence among Republican lawmakers and his opponents' reluctance to publicly oppose him suggest the former president's position within the party remains strong.

Trump is waging an unprecedented 2024 campaign that has been dogged by legal troubles. The former president has spent much of the holiday season complaining about special prosecutor Jack Smith, who is leading the federal investigation into alleged election meddling in 2020. His trial is scheduled for early March, just before Super Tuesday, when many states hold primary elections. However, Trump is trying to delay the trial by arguing that he enjoys immunity from prosecution.

Observers say former President Trump could use the Colorado ruling to motivate more Americans to stand by him. They say this is an opportunity for him to galvanize his supporters and gain sympathy within the Republican Party. Trump has repeatedly claimed he is the victim of a "witch hunt" by the Democratic Party and the Biden administration.

"Never forget our enemies want to take away my freedom, because I will never let them take away your freedom. I will not let them do that," he told a crowd of supporters in Waterloo, Iowa on the evening of December 19.

As the Republican primary race reaches its final stretch and the former president remains firmly in the driver's seat, other potential candidates are stepping up their campaigns to find out whether they can beat Trump in next year's nomination race.

However, observers do not appreciate this possibility. "I don't think when you look at the current indicators, you can see a path for anyone other than Mr. Trump," said Kyle Kondik, an election analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics .

Thanh Tam (According to CNN, Reuters, WSJ, MSNBC )

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