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Nikki Haley may need are available in third within the Iowa caucuses, however as she campaigns in New Hampshire for its first-in-the-nation main subsequent week, her consideration is squarely targeted on just one rival: Donald J. Trump.
Ms. Haley, a former South Carolina governor who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations underneath Mr. Trump, has begun fine-tuning her argument in opposition to her former boss, making an attempt out new jabs and unleashing a new attack ad proper out of the gate. She has additionally stepped up her efforts to border herself as Mr. Trump’s prime rival, asserting that she would not take part in main debates that don’t embrace him.
In current remarks and in a brand new tv advert, Ms. Haley paints Mr. Trump and President Biden as two sides of the identical coin: politicians previous their prime who’re unable to place forth a imaginative and prescient for the nation’s future as a result of they’re “consumed by the previous, by investigations, by grievances.”
At a marketing campaign rally on Wednesday in Rochester, N.H., she fended off Mr. Trump’s assaults on her immigration document, warned voters to not imagine his advertisements in opposition to her and reminded them that it was Mr. Trump who had wished to raise the age for Social Security eligibility and had as soon as proposed increasing the gas tax.
“Those are issues he must reply for. Oh, that’s proper! He gained’t get on the talk stage,” she swiped.
In Bretton Woods, N.H., the place she held her first rally after the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday, Ms. Haley stated she had voted for Mr. Trump twice and was “proud to serve in his administration” earlier than delving into her acquainted critique that, whether or not pretty or not, “chaos follows” the previous president. But she additionally took a number of extra acidic digs.
“The majority of Americans assume that having two 80-year-olds operating for president is just not what they need,” she stated to a smattering of applause on the Omni Mount Washington Resort.
To ensure, Ms. Haley has not fully deserted her measured method to Mr. Trump. On Thursday, she informed voters she wouldn’t assault him personally — “individuals both need me to hate Trump or love Trump” — saying individuals are uninterested in that form of politics. “I simply inform it on coverage,” she stated.
She has not flatly rejected operating as his vp and doesn’t speak about his felony fees. In a CNN interview, Ms. Haley claimed she had not “paid consideration to his circumstances” when the host, Dana Bash, requested how she felt about her party’s front-runner being held accountable for sexual abuse. Ms. Bash was referring to the defamation lawsuit filed by the writer E. Jean Carroll, which is now on trial.
“This one I haven’t checked out,” Ms. Haley contended, “but when he’s discovered responsible, he must pay the worth.” (Mr. Trump has already been discovered liable in a civil trial, and a jury is just weighing how a lot he has to pay.)
Although she was sluggish to make inroads in Iowa, she has been closely competing in New Hampshire from the beginning, buoyed by a current inflow of money from her allied tremendous PAC and the prospect of a extra impartial and college-educated citizens. On Wednesday, her chief opponent for second place, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, introduced he can be relocating the vast majority of his employees to South Carolina, her residence turf, whereas largely pulling again on occasions in New Hampshire.
Mr. DeSantis is aiming to take benefit in her personal yard forward of that late-February main, the place the Republican base is extra in step with the largely white and Christian evangelical voters present in Iowa. Ms. Haley, for her half, has lengthy contended that she would carry out properly sufficient in Iowa and New Hampshire to catapult her marketing campaign right into a showdown with Mr. Trump in South Carolina.
But Mr. Trump continues to carry leads in each states. It was in South Carolina the place Mr. Trump solidified his path to the G.O.P. nomination seven years in the past. And a new poll from New Hampshire’s St. Anselm College exhibits that whereas Ms. Haley is handily profitable over New Hampshire independents, Mr. Trump’s maintain on Republican voters is so overwhelming that he leads by double digits, 52 % to 38 %.
Nevertheless, he has responded in type to Ms. Haley, looking for to totally dispense along with his nearest rivals after a blowout victory in Iowa.
At his rally in a country club in Atkinson, N.H., this week, he attacked her monitor document as governor and portrayed her as out of contact and never Republican. His marketing campaign has despatched out a slew of emails with topic strains together with: “Nikki Haley Loves China,” “Nikki Haley Is Funded By Democrats, Wall Street, & Globalists” and “Nikki Haley Is Weak On Immigration And Opposes A Border Wall.”
On Wednesday in Portsmouth, N.H., he additional polished his assaults on Ms. Haley, pointing to her previous positions on taxes, Social Security and Medicare and condemned her for being supported by liberals and moderates.
Citing a ballot that confirmed that just about half of Ms. Haley’s supporters in Iowa stated they’d vote for President Biden over Mr. Trump, the previous president stated, “Now, that signifies that she’s like a Democrat. I truly assume she may go to the Democratic Party.”
Later, he criticized her as being too weak on border safety, a signature concern that has animated Mr. Trump’s presidential campaigns. As he accused her of supporting open borders, he informed tons of in New Hampshire, “I don’t know that she’s a Democrat, however she’s very shut. She’s far too shut for you.”
Mr. Trump was additionally set to say that “Nikki Haley wouldn’t simply lose the White House, she’d lose us the House and Senate,” according to remarks shared by his marketing campaign. He left that line out of his speech, but it surely was reported on-line, and Ms. Haley had a prepared rebuttal. While Mr. Trump was nonetheless onstage, she wrote on X that Trump “is confused about his personal document,” and famous that Republicans misplaced the House, Senate and presidency throughout his tenure.
Earlier within the day, her marketing campaign preemptively rebutted his criticism on her document, releasing a two-minute compilation capturing Mr. Trump thanking Ms. Haley for her work as governor and ambassador.
Democrats have been hitting Ms. Haley, too. They have pointed to her signing of strict abortion and immigration restrictions and her cautious therapy of Mr. Trump as indicators that she is a part of the identical previous wave of extremist Republicans as Mr. Trump, relatively than a contemporary face.
“No matter how they costume it up, these MAGA Republicans have already informed us how they wish to crash our financial system and rip away our freedoms for their very own political acquire — and we’ll take them at their phrase,” Ray Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, stated in an announcement.
Neil Vigdor contributed reporting from Bretton Woods, N.H.
