Politics
Anti-Trump Republicans say Nikki Haley is their ‘only hope.’ But is her surge coming too late?
Retiree Reggie Alt handed a handwritten seven-page memo detailing her ideas for how to beat former President Trump to one of former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley’s aides.
Then she grasped Haley’s hands and offered the GOP presidential candidate some Star Wars-themed advice:
“Think of Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are our only hope,” the 68-year-old Algona resident told Haley.
At a recent campaign event in Spirit Lake, Iowa, Nikki Haley supporter Reggie Alt, 68, right, told the candidate, “Think of Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are our only hope,”
Haley laughed and wrapped her arms around the former receptionist.
Haley needs the support of caucusgoers like Alt, an independent voter who said she has supported presidential candidates of both parties over the past half-century, if she hopes to narrow former President Trump’s massive lead in state and national polls ahead of this month’s Iowa caucuses. A strong showing in the Jan. 15 contest could better position her to snatch her party’s nomination from her onetime boss.
“Haley has a strong chance” if Trump’s campaign collapses, Dianne Bystrom, director emerita of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University. “She’s a candidate who checks all the boxes — she’s a very good communicator, a very skilled debater, she has excellent television ads, and she comes across as strong and articulate.”
Nikki Haley speaks to a packed house at Okoboji Barn in Spirit Lake, Iowa.
Haley is enjoying a boomlet of sorts. Her poll numbers have risen in recent weeks, larger crowds are attending her events, she has won prominent donors and endorsers, and a recent Wall Street Journal survey showed her beating President Biden by 17 percentage points in a hypothetical contest — the biggest margin for any GOP candidate in the field. Increased scrutiny — including of Haley’s failure to mention slavery as a cause of the Civil War during a town hall in New Hampshire last week — has followed.
Her prospects of actually reaching the general election still look grim. Trump swamps Haley and the rest of the GOP field in national and early-state polls, including South Carolina, where she served as governor for six years. The top item in a recent campaign missive lauding “Haley’s Week of Wins” was a Fox News headline that asked whether New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu’s endorsement of Haley would “make a dent in Trump’s massive lead in GOP presidential primary race?”
Aside from nicknaming Haley “birdbrain,” Trump and his allies largely ignored her until recent weeks. Last month, a super PAC backing the former president launched a television ad in New Hampshire that distorts her gubernatorial record on a state gas tax. The ad shows video of Haley saying she opposed such a tax and then saying she supported one, while omitting that she said she would only support such a measure if the state’s income tax rates were was cut by 2%.
As Haley’s prominence has grown, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, once viewed as the top Republican challenger to Trump, and his allies have attacked the former ambassador as beholden to Wall Street, questioned her conservative bona fides and cast aspersions about her tenure as governor.
But neutral observers argue that if everything breaks Haley’s way, she has a narrow path to the GOP nomination.
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1. The shoes of a supporter of presidential candidate Nikki Haley next to a campaign sign. 2. Nikki Haley campaign materials. 3. Supporters have a wide choice of apparel emblazoned with Nikki Haley slogans. 4. Nikki Haley signs are prepositioned for supporters at an Iowa campaign stop by the Republican presidential candidate.
“If she finishes strongly in Iowa, and by strongly, I would say second place ahead of DeSantis … it’s plausible she can come to New Hampshire and say, ‘Look, New Hampshire, it’s either me or Trump,’” said Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire.
The author of “Stormy Weather: The New Hampshire Primary and Presidential Politics” said Haley has an edge in the Live Free and Die state over the other Republicans running.
“She has found a niche in New Hampshire among moderate voters, independents, people who have serious doubts about Donald Trump and don’t want him to be the nominee again,” Scala said, adding that such voters are also drawn to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s candidacy but find Haley more likable.
A poll of likely voters released by Saint Anselm College last month found Haley rising in the state, winning the backing of 30% to Trump’s 44%. Haley doubled her support since the last poll, while the former president held steady. Christie lagged at 12%, with the rest of the GOP field further behind.
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1. Kevin Boyens, 67, of Everly, Iowa, says he is an independent who will caucus for Nikki Haley. 2. Vincent Bedard, left, and Erik Kruse of Bloomington, Minn., pose for a photo with Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley holding their 3-week-old baby Dominik Kruse.
Doug Gross, a Republican Des Moines lawyer who recently endorsed Haley, said he expects Trump to win Iowa. But if Haley has a strong showing in second place, that would give her momentum going into New Hampshire, he said.
“Then you have a shootout in her home state of South Carolina,” he said. “That’s as good as it could get for Nikki Haley.”
Gross is among Haley’s backers who wish she had spent more time in Iowa, though he is hopeful that a recent endorsement by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group with a significant presence in the state, could give her an organizational boost.
Haley, whose debate performances and voter town halls are spiked with a mix of Southern charm and acerbic wit, attempts to connect with Iowans by highlighting her own small-town roots.
“I was born and raised in a small rural town in South Carolina: 2,500 people, two stop lights,” Haley said recently, standing in front of an enormous green John Deere tractor and stacked bales of hay in a shed in Waukee, Iowa. “You couldn’t think about doing something wrong without somebody telling your mama.”
Windmills and hay bales dot the Iowa landscape on the road between Sioux Center and Spirit Lake following the Nikki Haley campaign.
In the waning weeks before the caucuses, Haley is pressing her electability against Biden as well as her foreign policy credentials and traditional neocon views — notable bona fides at a time of Russia’s ongoing onslaught against Ukraine, Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel and growing concerns about China’s intentions in East Asia.
Such views cemented the support of Michelle Garland, a 52-year-old college psychology professor, after she saw Haley speak at a tony restaurant in Clear Lake.
“To use a word in Yiddish, she has chutzpah. She’s genuine. She’s authentic,” said Garland, an independent voter. “She doesn’t say what people want to hear. She says what she feels. And if you don’t like that, well, you can go elsewhere.”
A question-and-answer period takes up the bulk of the former ambassador’s campaign events. Haley spends more time talking to voters, taking selfies with supporters and signing campaign mementos such as her book “With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace” than she does delivering her stump speech.
These are traits that have traditionally been key to winning the hearts and minds of Iowa voters.
“She could be your best girlfriend. Like, you know, we can open up a bottle of wine or have a coffee together and we would find just the human kind of association together,” said Claudia Ewald, 65, after asking Haley to sign a picture of them and her husband Dave at the Waukee gathering.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley talks with a man wearing a cap identifying him as a Korean War veteran after her event at Waukee, Iowa. Haley spends more time interacting one-on-one with voters at her campaign stops than she does speaking onstage.
The picture was taken at a 2021 fundraiser for Gov. Kim Reynolds, the first time Ewald met Haley. She was instantly smitten, saying Haley was “a woman who was solid, who could be a consensus builder.”
“Her national security [background] was her primary strength,” Ewald said, before adding that she made a point of seeing other candidates including DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy before making a decision. “Nikki just kept coming up on top. She’s a very genuine person.”
Haley does not overtly focus on her gender, despite it being an undercurrent in the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned federal protection of abortion rights.
But her remarks — whether about her role as a military wife and mom, firing back at her GOP rivals when they make gendered statements, or calling for “a badass woman” to be elected to the White House — appear to be aimed at the suburban female voters who could swing next year’s election.
Nikki Haley speaks in Spirit Lake, Iowa, in December.
This message and attitude has previously resonated with Iowan voters, noted David Kochel, a veteran GOP strategist who has advised Reynolds, as well as Iowa’s Sen. Joni Ernst and Rep. Ashley Hinson.
“Iowa has elected a number of candidates who sound a lot like Nikki Haley … strong conservative women,” Kochel said, adding that Haley’s message is “compelling.” “Now the question is — is there enough time?”
Politics
Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf
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President Donald Trump is taking his feud with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to the libertarian lawmaker’s home turf on Wednesday.
Trump is expected to hold an event in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday, the Republican Party of Kentucky announced on social media Monday. It’s located in the northern part of the state’s 4th Congressional District, which Massie represents.
Massie’s primary rival, Ed Gallrein, will attend the Hebron event, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, while deferring all other questions on the matter to the White House.
Massie himself will miss the event due to a previously scheduled official engagement, his spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
KHANNA AND MASSIE THREATEN TO FORCE A VOTE ON IRAN AS PROSPECT OF US ATTACK LOOMS
President Donald Trump will be visiting Rep. Thomas Massie’s congressional district on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
When asked about the visit, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital, “President Trump will visit the great states of Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to tout his economic victories and detail his Administration’s aggressive, ongoing efforts to lower prices and make America more affordable.”
The president has thrown his considerable influence behind Gallrein to unseat Massie after the GOP lawmaker publicly defied Trump on multiple occasions.
MASSIE, KHANNA TO VISIT DOJ TO REVIEW UNREDACTED EPSTEIN FILES
Massie most recently was one of two House Republicans to vote to stop Trump’s joint operation in Iran with Israel, though the legislation was successfully blocked by the majority of GOP lawmakers and a handful of Democrats.
Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. (Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)
He was also one of two Republicans to vote against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year.
Trump in turn has hurled a slew of personal attacks against Massie, including calling him “weak and pathetic” in a statement endorsing Gallrein in October.
“He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time, one of numerous criticisms targeting the Kentucky Republican through the years.
He called Massie the “worst Republican congressman” in July amid Massie’s bipartisan push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.
Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But Massie has so far appeared to defy political gravity despite making political enemies out of both Trump and House GOP leaders.
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He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.
Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who launched his campaign days after Trump made his endorsement. Their primary election day is May 19.
Politics
California Democrats launch pricey polling effort to winnow crowded gubernatorial field
As anxiety mounts among California Democrats about the potential of a Republican being elected governor, the state party will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on polling to assess the viability of the sprawling field of candidates hoping to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to plans released Tuesday.
The move comes after nearly every Democratic candidate refused party leaders’ call last week to withdraw from the race to avoid splitting the vote in the June primary — an outcome that could lead to a Republican being elected to statewide office for the first time in two decades.
“Candidates have filed, and now they’ve got the opportunity to showcase their viability, their path to win. I want to simply ensure that everybody has information to fully understand the current state of the race,” said Rusty Hicks, the leader of the California Democratic Party.
As campaign season ramps up, the series of six polls will allow “candidates, supporters, the media, voters, anyone and everyone to have a clear understanding of what is or is not happening in this particular race,” he said.
The filing deadline to appear on the June 2 ballot was Friday. Three days earlier, Hicks released an open letter urging candidates who did not have a path to victory to withdraw from the race. Of the nine prominent Democrats who had announced runs for governor, only one heeded his call: former state Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon.
That means the eight other candidates’ names will appear on the ballot, regardless of whether they decide to later drop out. And that creates the possibility of a Republican winning the race because of how California elections are decided.
The state has a voter-approved top-two primary system, under which the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June primary advance to the November general election, regardless of party.
Two prominent Republicans will appear on the ballot: former conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. Even though Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1, and the state’s electorate last elevated Republicans to statewide office in 2006, it is mathematically possible for Democrats to splinter the vote, allowing the two GOP candidates to advance.
Under such a scenario, not only would Republicans be guaranteed the leadership of the nation’s most-populous state, but Democratic voter turnout also would probably be depressed in November, potentially affecting down-ballot races such as those that could determine control of Congress.
Hicks’ call last week prompted concerns among candidates of color, including former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, that the effort was aimed at every nonwhite candidate in the race.
The state party chairman responded that his letter was not aimed at any specific candidate.
“It’s not something I lose sleep over,” Hicks said when asked about the racial claims. But he added that the voter surveys will be conducted by Los Angeles-based Evitarus, the state’s only Black- and Latino-led full-service polling firm, and will oversample historically underrepresented communities: Latino, Black and Asian American voters.
Hicks said the polling will cost “multiple six figures” but did not specify the exact amount.
The first poll will be released on March 24, and then five additional surveys will come out every seven to 10 days until voters start receiving mail ballots in early May.
“We’re putting this forward to ensure everyone is armed with the information they need to clearly have an eyes-wide-open assessment of where the state of the race currently is between now and when ballots land in the mailboxes of voters,” Hicks said.
Politics
Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’
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President Donald Trump outlined five key items he believes will tip the upcoming midterm elections in the GOP’s favor — if Republicans can muscle them through Congress.
“No transgender mutilation surgery for our children,” Trump told an audience at the Republican Members’ Issues Conference. “Voter ID, citizenship [verification], mail-in ballots, we don’t want men playing in women’s sports.”
“It’s the best of Trump. Those are the best of Trump. This is the number one priority, it should be, for the House,” Trump said.
Trump’s exhortations to Republican lawmakers come as the GOP wages an uphill campaign to hang on to a controlling majority in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He framed his legislative priorities as a way for Republicans to capitalize on popular demands within the GOP base that would increase their chances of preserving a Republican governing trifecta.
President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Air Force One before departing Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, on March 1, 2026. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)
HOUSE REPUBLICANS PUSH ELECTION OVERHAUL WITH VOTER ID, MAIL-IN BALLOT CHANGES AHEAD OF MIDTERMS
Currently, Republicans hold just four more seats than Democrats in the House of Representatives.
The GOP holds six more than Democrats in the Senate.
To keep the numbers in their favor, Republicans will need to beat historical trends. In the vast majority of past cases, parties that capture the White House in presidential elections face blowback in the midterms. Notably, the last time a majority party gained seats in both chambers of Congress in the midterms came under the Bush administration in 2002, following devastating attacks on the World Trade Center.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, left, and President Donald Trump shake hands during an Invest America roundtable in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, on June 9, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
REPUBLICANS, TRUMP RUN INTO SENATE ROADBLOCK ON VOTER ID BILL
Trump said he believes Republicans have a shot at bucking the trend come November if they focus on his list.
“It’ll guarantee the midterms,” Trump said of his legislative priorities.
Republicans have already taken strikes towards two of them through the SAVE America Act, a piece of legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and cast a ballot. That bill cleared the House last month for a second time in the 119th Congress.
Its future is uncertain in the Senate, where Republicans would need the assistance of seven Democrats to overcome the 60-vote threshold to defeat a filibuster. Democrats, for their part, believe the legislation would disenfranchise voters who cannot readily provide documented proof of citizenship through a passport, REAL ID, or birth certificate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. has promised a vote on the package despite its long odds.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, talks with a guest during a “Only Citizens Vote Bus Tour” rally in Upper Senate Park to urge Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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Several members have introduced bills on transgender issues, although none of them have cleared either chamber.
“I’ve never been more confident that if we keep these promises and deliver on this popular agenda, the American people will stand with us in overwhelming numbers, just as they did in 2024,” Trump said.
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