Fresh off of a recent poll putting Nikki Haley in second place in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, the former South Carolina governor stumped in the Granite State on Monday in an effort to chip away at former President Donald Trump’s lead.
Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under Trump, told the crowd at a town hall in Hooksett, N.H., that “chaos follows” her former boss.
“I think President Trump was the right president at the right time,” Haley said. “I was proud to serve America in his administration. I agree with a lot of his policies.
“But the reality is: chaos follows him,” she continued. “You know it. Rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. And when we’ve got an economy out of control and we’ve got wars around the world, we can’t afford any more chaos.”
It was a similar tack to the one she took against Trump in the most recent GOP presidential debate, when she criticized the former president for being “weak in the knees” on Ukraine and accruing “$8 trillion in debt,” for which “our kids are never going to forgive us.”
Haley was joined Monday at her stop in Hooksett — just north of Manchester, the state’s most populous city — by Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, a highly popular figure in the Granite State who briefly mulled a presidential bid of his own earlier this year before announcing he would not seek a fifth term in office.
“We have officially picked our date, the clock is ticking,” Sununu said Monday of the state last week setting its Jan. 23, 2024, date for the primary. “The world is watching where we go and what we do.”
Sununu has not yet announced an endorsement in the race. He was set to participate in a town hall with former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another 2024 GOP hopeful. Sununu has warned that a third White House bid by Trump could be disastrous for Republicans.
“If he is the nominee, Republicans will lose again,” Sununu wrote in a June op-ed for the Washington Post. "Just as we did in 2018, 2020 and 2022. This is indisputable, and I am not willing to let it happen without a fight.”
Haley on Monday touched on familiar topics — foreign policy issues like the wars in Ukraine and Israel, and domestic ones like securing the U.S.-Mexico border and establishing term limits to keep older politicians from staying in office.
Haley has seen her stock steadily rise since launching her presidential run back in February. A poll last week found that Haley has launched into second place in the New Hampshire primary, surpassing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, though still far behind former President Trump, who scored a commanding 49% in the survey.
Political scientist Todd Belt told Spectrum News that her strong debate performances have helped her rise in the polls, adding: “She's gotten drawn into a couple of bickering fights with some of the other candidates, but for the most part, she has sort of been the adult in the room.”
At her event Monday, New Hampshire voters told Spectrum News they appreciate her job experience and analytical approach. One praised her “breadth of knowledge” and experience as both a state governor and on the world stage, while another called her “the most common sense person that’s running.”
Though another resident worried that she won’t be able to overcome Trump’s sizable grip on the Republican Party’s voters.
“I just think that she’s going to end up in second place behind Trump,” said New Hampshire resident John Mara. “And in March, the story will be written that, ‘boy, did she make a great surge, but she just didn’t quite get there.’ That’s my concern.”