Ahead of this week’s second Republican debate, it now appears that former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has moved ahead of pharmaceutical bro Vivek Ramaswamy in Fox News’ Trump-alternative GOP primary.
Prior to last month’s debate, which GOP frontrunner Donald Trump skipped to do a Twitter video with Tucker Carlson, Ramaswamy had seemingly become the conservative cable giant’s preferred Republican hopeful to go head-to-head with President Joe Biden. However, following the debate, which featured Haley blasting Ramaswamy over his lack of experience, Fox quickly touted the ex-guv as the winner and said “she ran away with the show.”
While she’s since enjoyed extremely friendly sit-downs on Fox & Friends and the primetime shows, Ramaswamy has found himself grilled at times during his Fox News hits. For instance, during a Fox News Sunday interview this month, anchor Shannon Bream noted that Ramaswamy is seen by voters as “annoying” while straight up asking him “what’s the point of your campaign?”
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Additionally, mentions of Haley on Fox News airwaves have surged since the last debate. The month prior to the event, Haley had been discussed 188 times on the network, compared to 367 for Ramaswmay, according to media monitoring service TVEyes. Since the debate, however, her name has been mentioned 444 times as of Monday morning. Coincidentally, that is the same number of times Ramaswamy has been brought up on Fox since the debate.
Besides her strong debate performance, the Fox News embrace of Haley appears to coincide with her polling strength. Though she is still largely in single digits in national GOP polls, she has recently surpassed Ramaswamy in the latest surveys. Besides the conventional wisdom that she would absorb most of Ron DeSantis’ supporters if the struggling Florida governor were to drop out, she has also shown herself to be the strongest candidate head-to-head with Biden. (The network devoted a large chunk of airtime to a CNN poll showing Haley would beat the president by six points, while other candidates were tied with or trailed Biden.)
Additionally, Haley’s campaign strategy appears to largely revolve around softball sitdowns while avoiding reporters on the trail. Several campaign reporters grumbled to Confider about the candidate’s unwillingness to hold press gaggles or even answer journalists’ questions following campaign events, while simultaneously arranging sympathetic TV appearances centered on her latest press releases.
“Notable because DeSantis now talks to the campaign press corps and Haley never does,” one reporter said, while another noted that Haley appeared carefully “stage-managed.” A representative for Haley did not respond to a request for comment.
