Welcome to Trail Mix, your 2024 election sanity guide. See something interesting on the trail? Email me at jake.lahut@thedailybeast.com.
This week, we explore the big voter demographic that could put a wrench into Donald Trump’s plans of cruising to victory. Plus, exclusive interviews with Sen. John Fetterman and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R).
ALL THE SUBURBAN LADIES
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With just 10 days until the Iowa caucuses kick off the 2024 presidential nominating process, Nikki Haley is suddenly threatening to turn a smooth coronation of Donald Trump into an actual contest.
But Haley’s surge is revealing of a broader problem for Trump—one that could potentially derail the former president in the general election should he defeat her in the primary.
Women, including Republican women, still just don’t like the former president.
A recent survey of likely voters in New Hampshire distills the extent of the challenge for Trump. The poll, conducted by American Research Group, showed Trump beating Haley overall among GOP primary voters, 37 percent to 33 percent.
But among Republican women, Haley was running ahead of Trump by 6 points.
It’s no blowout lead, but considering Trump’s vise-like grip on today’s GOP—and his strong standing in New Hampshire—the numbers at least point to a path for Haley to edge out the former president in the nation’s first primary state.
Behind the scenes in Republican campaign circles, Trump’s vulnerability with women voters, particularly college-educated women, is worrying operatives who believe it could doom any chances of defeating President Joe Biden in the general election.
The party base remains “in denial with the white suburban women vote,” a former Trump appointee who is considering joining forces with Haley told The Daily Beast.
Since 2016, Trump’s base has consistently been male-dominated, and while he performed better among women in 2020, his share of support among college-educated white women didn’t budge.
In 2020, 59 percent of college-educated women broke for Biden, according to Pew Research data. If Haley could make even a slight dent in those numbers as the GOP nominee in 2024, it could put the Biden campaign on the defensive beyond the usual handful of battleground states.
While the Haley campaign would not share any internal data on women voters, those close to her operation suggested they know how crucial the voting bloc will be for her, both in New Hampshire and in the rest of the primary states. Haley’s campaign operation is also already thinking about how the former governor’s appeal with women voters could help her beat Biden in a general election matchup.
“The female demographic nationally is an increasingly important one,” a source close to the Haley campaign in New Hampshire told The Daily Beast, requesting anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak on behalf of the campaign. “Their turnout rates are higher, there are a larger number of registered voters who are female, and so that’s going to be a critical demographic in this election.”
A big part of what Haley’s supporters like about her approach so far has been how little she mentions the possibility of being the first woman president, often only in passing.
Haley appeals to these voters by focusing not on her gender or the maleness of her opponents, but sticking closely to a balance of economic issues along with national security, campaign allies told The Daily Beast.
“We have a long tradition here in New Hampshire of electing no-nonsense women on both sides of the aisle,” the former Trump official said, adding “it’s not lost on people” how Haley would be the first female president and the GOP’s first female nominee.
“But it’s not something that she’s leading with,” the Haley-friendly Republican continued. “And I think that’s probably smart. I would draw a comparison to Barack Obama here in New Hampshire in 2008. He did not run around the state saying, ‘Oh my gosh, I could be the first Black president.’ It just wasn’t lost on people.”
The fact that the only female candidate in the GOP primary has walked a fine line on abortion is another reason some Republicans believe she is doing well among women.
While Haley still calls herself “pro-life,” she has said she wants to leave decisions on reproductive rights to the states, and would not pursue a national bill on abortion unless it could win 60 votes in the Senate.
Haley’s abortion views have had the effect of “endearing her to more of these college-educated suburban female voters where they're actually enthusiastic about Haley,” said Sarah Longwell, the founder of the anti-Trump site The Bulwark and a GOP strategist who regularly conducts focus groups with voters.
Even if Haley’s position on abortion wasn’t a winner, the veteran strategist admitted, “it sounds a lot better coming out of a woman’s mouth.”
But some plugged-in Republicans aren’t buying that Haley could ride a wave of support among GOP women to an upset primary win. Whether a Republican primary voter has a college degree is a far more reliable indicator of their openness to voting against Trump compared to gender alone, said Longwell.
Nikki Haley speaks in Rye, New Hampshire, on January 2.
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images“I do think that sometimes people overemphasize gender, in terms of people who are anti-Trump who have been part of the Republican party,” Longwell said. “I think the dividing line is much clearer around college education.”
Still, Longwell did not underestimate how a figure like Haley could galvanize college-educated white women who remain a significant part of the GOP electorate.
“In a place like New Hampshire,” she said, “Nikki Haley is giving college-educated suburban women somebody to root for.”
FETTERMAN’S TRUMP WARNING
Like most Democrats, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) believes Trump poses a lethal threat to American democracy if he were re-elected as president.
But unlike many Democrats, Fetterman isn’t cheering the recent efforts in Colorado and Maine to remove Trump from the 2024 primary ballot.
He’s disturbed by them.
“I just want to just go on the record to say how incredibly unhelpful it is to have other states removing him from the ballot,” Fetterman said in a phone interview with The Daily Beast. “All of that is a gift to Trump. And all it does is just make him more popular and strong. That’s just going to energize his base—it’s just not helpful.”
So far, very few Democratic elected officials have been willing to say as much publicly, even if they might believe it privately. But the freshman senator has proven unafraid to go where his colleagues won’t, as evidenced in his merciless calls for the allegedly corrupt Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to resign.
Sen. John Fetterman
Kevin Dietsch/GettyAnd the question of Trump’s eligibility for the ballot is touchy turf for Democrats. Last month, Colorado’s Supreme Court disqualified Trump from the state’s primary ballot because he violated the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment prohibition that citizens who engage in “insurrection” are ineligible for public office. Then, Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, moved to do so on similar grounds. Trump is appealing both decisions.
Democrats have welcomed these findings as a vindication of the rule of law. Responding to the Colorado ruling, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told The Daily Beast, “what could be more democratic than a Constitution which disqualifies officials who become insurrectionists and traitors to the democracy?”
To Fetterman, there’s just one way Trump will be denied a return to the White House: with a Biden re-election victory in November 2024.
“You know, he just absorbs this kind of energy,” the senator said of Trump. “The only way that we’re going to put him away is going to be in an election. And that’s what I believe we’re going to do and I fundamentally believe that’s why President Biden is going to be running.”
Perhaps no state is more pivotal to the 2024 outcome than Fetterman’s home of Pennsylvania. Biden’s narrow victory there in 2020 pushed him over the top to an Electoral College victory and he’s campaigning like it could again, visiting the battleground state dozens of times since taking office.
Fetterman is bullish on Biden’s record. Asked what the president could do differently to persuade the public he’s stewarded the economy successfully, the senator indicated his faith that voters will understand the contrast once Trump emerges as the GOP nominee.
“Of course, perception can be reality” when it comes to the economy, Fetterman said. “But I do think more and more voters are going to realize that, hey, things are in a much better place and I don’t think enough people will decide that we want to return to the chaos and the divisiveness… I think it’s really going to come down to a good-versus-evil kind of a choice.”
Even with his Biden optimism, Fetterman has always been clear-eyed about Trump’s strength in Pennsylvania. In 2020, Fetterman—then lieutenant governor—retweeted a photo from a packed MAGA rally near Pittsburgh. “The President is popular in PA. I don’t care what polls say,” Fetterman wrote at the time.
“The polls were showing that Biden was up by 5 points, and this was going to be a walk,” Fetterman told The Daily Beast now. “And I’m like, ‘No, that’s not true. It’s going to be close and it’s going to be rough.’”
The now-senator believes the same will be the case in 2024, no matter what the polls say currently.
“I think it’s going to be close, and I don’t think that's a brave prediction,” Fetterman said. “I think that’s the reality of where we are as a nation, and I’m not losing my mind over the polls or anything like that, because I was actually much more alarmed by the polls in 2020 that thought Biden was going to skate in a lot of states, including my own.”
“Now we’re 10, 11, months away from it—everything can change,” he said.
NEW HAMPSHIRE’S BIGGEST BEEF
In the eyes of the influential governor hoping to will a Trump vs. Haley Republican primary into existence, the task is already complete.
“We did it,” New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu told a packed crowd Wednesday night for Haley at Wentworth by the Sea, a ritzy country club along the Atlantic shore. “We narrowed this down.”
Such a declaration would be news to the likes of Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Chris Christie, all of whom still command meaningful levels of support in New Hampshire and Iowa and very much remain in the race.
But Sununu’s mission-accomplished swagger will infuriate one of those three candidates the most—and escalate a personal beef that’s been simmering since the New Hampshire governor made his decision to endorse Haley.
Chris Christie speaks in Bedford, New Hampshire, in December 2023.
Sophie Park/Getty ImagesChristie made an aggressive play for Sununu’s endorsement. After not giving Christie so much as a heads-up on his decision to back Haley, Sununu urged his pal to drop out.
It has, predictably, gone poorly for Sununu. “Some people say I should drop out of this race,” a softly lit Christie says in a direct-to-camera 30-second slot blanketing New Hampshire’s airwaves, which is titled “Some People Say.”
“Really?” Christie continues, tilting his head and squinting at the camera. “I’m the only one saying Donald Trump is a liar… Every Republican leader says that in private. I’m the only one saying it in public. What kind of president do we want? A liar? Or someone who’s got the guts to tell the truth? I’m Chris Christie, and you bet I approve this message.”
When asked about Christie in an interview with The Daily Beast, Sununu thanked him for speaking “his truth about Trump for a full year,” and emphasized “he always knew we had to consolidate, and we have a great candidate to consolidate behind.” Beyond that, Sununu praised Christie for doing a “great job” making the case to voters about moving on from the former president.
The buttering-up, though, remains in service to the victory Sununu has claimed but hasn’t actually won: narrowing the non-Trump field.
Christie “could be the hero here” if he dropped out, Sununu quickly added.
“My message to Chris is: The next few weeks aren’t going to make a difference,” Sununu said. “He’s done. There’s no path to winning the nomination.”
“That’s what Chris has to understand,” Sununu said before resuming his mingling with voters. “He could be the hero here to help put Nikki over the top, deliver Trump a loss nobody thought was possible, and allow New Hampshire to do what we’ve always done, which is put forward this next generation of leadership.”
POLLING STATION
In all likelihood, the biggest re-election obstacle for Biden is the country’s puzzling relationship with the economy. Inflation eased significantly throughout 2023, job growth remains strong, unemployment is at 3.7 percent, and a widely anticipated post-COVID recession has yet to materialize. But opinion polls routinely show that Americans feel pessimistic about the economy and their own pocketbook prospects.
Theories abound, but new numbers from the left-leaning polling shop Data For Progress might help explain at least partially why the vibes are off. In survey results that were shared exclusively with The Daily Beast, Data For Progress found that people are most worried, by far, about their most basic expense: getting food on the table.
When asked to choose up to three reasons why they believe the economy isn’t improving, a whopping 61 percent of poll respondents cited the price of groceries. That group included 45 percent of self-identified Democratic survey respondents, who tend to be more sanguine about the economy, and over two-thirds of independents and Republicans.
The next top three reasons all had to do with high costs, with 31 percent citing the price of goods and services, 30 percent citing the price of utility bills, and 24 percent citing the price of gas.
While the prices of gas and other goods and services have decreased since the pandemic, prices at the supermarket have remained stubbornly high. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, grocery price inflation eased from 2022 to 2023, but the average grocery bill in the U.S. remains noticeably higher than it was in 2019, pre-COVID.
Overall, the DFP poll found that 65 percent of likely voters do not think the economy is getting better for people like them, while just 29 percent believe it is. The silver lining for Democrats? That number represents an improvement from the shop’s September poll, when only 24 percent of voters had a positive view of the economy.
ON A SCREEN NEAR YOU
Once again, Nikki Haley has more negative ads coming her way. Del Rey Media, a firm which Trumpworld has frequently turned to for media, polling, and data analytics services, placed a $1.5 million ad buy targeting Haley in New Hampshire to start the new year. The firm did not return a request for comment.
The Biden campaign is also launching an ad on the anniversary of Jan. 6, highlighting Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and his ongoing threats to democracy. It will air for a full week in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The president narrates the ad, which also has 15-second and six-second versions airing on YouTube, Instagram, and Connected TV, according to the Biden campaign. Team Biden is spending $500,000 to air the spot—a very low sum considering the extent of the ad’s reach.
OFF THE BEATEN PATH
Russian roulette. On the primary trail, Haley is pulling off a rare feat for a leader in today’s GOP: getting a rise out of voters over Russia. At a recent stop in New Hampshire, Haley gravely informed the crowd that Vladimir Putin has raised his country’s eligible military service age to 65 years old—prompting a wave of murmurs and some actual jaw dropping from the crowd. “I told you,” Haley said, “everybody always looks around whenever I say that.”
The former United Nations ambassador is the leading GOP primary candidate who supports continued military aid for Ukraine to stave off Putin’s invasion. Polls show that roughly half the GOP believes the United States is sending too much aid to Ukraine, and Trump and DeSantis are steadfastly opposed to supporting the country. But the moment in Haley’s stump speech reveals just how little many voters have heard about the details of the conflict.
Hawkeye Ron. The DeSantis campaign is seizing on a throwaway comment from Haley about Iowa to both ding her and conspicuously defend the honor of the state DeSantis is hoping will rescue his 2024 bid. “You know, Iowa starts it. You know that you correct it,” Haley told voters crammed into a gym in Milford, New Hampshire, invoking that state’s better record of picking presidents than Iowa.
The DeSantis campaign followed up with an indignant press release featuring condemnations from their top Iowa surrogates, including Gov. Kim Reynolds.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds introduces Ron DeSantis during a campaign event.
Scott Olson/GettyA DeSantis campaign official told The Daily Beast to expect the candidate to keep hammering Haley over the Iowa remark in coming appearances. DeSantis escalated things even further on Thursday morning: in an interview with Iowa talk radio host Gary Sadlemyer, DeSantis not only knocked Haley’s organization in the state, but also accused her of only taking “scripted questions, usually that are planted in the audience.”
A Haley campaign spokesperson dismissed the allegation of having planted questions, telling The Daily Beast “Ron DeSantis is trying desperately to stay relevant. It’s sad to watch, but it’s not working. This is a two-person race between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump.”
Haley’s Confederate flag cleanup. The fallout from Haley’s viral Civil War gaffe has led her to speak more freely about a defining event from her career: taking down the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state capitol grounds during her time as governor.
It’s a moment Haley hasn’t exactly talked up often. But at a Wednesday night town hall in New Hampshire, she spoke more about it than at any other point in her presidential run, telling a crowd she was “blessed” to have bipartisan support bringing down the rebel flag following the 2015 shooting at the Charleston church where a white supremacist gunman killed nine Black worshipers.
Haley described the debate as “very contentious,” one in which “half of South Carolina saw the flag as heritage and tradition.” And she admitted it still “haunts” her knowing that a call she made to Clementa C. Pinckney, a former South Carolina state senator and the pastor of Mother Emanuel AME Church, “rang in his pocket after he had been shot.”
CAMPAIGN LIT
GOP’s abortion divide. Some Republican lawmakers think the party needs to show they’re not against banning contraception, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) telling Riley Rogerson “it’s about darn time” for Republicans to promote birth control.
99 problems. Joe Kent, a Republican running for Congress in Washington state, has a tricky money trail involving shell companies and shady finances leading to an adviser with white nationalist ties, Roger Sollenberger and Will Bredderman reveal.
Flammable materials. The Haley-Trump feud kicked off in earnest with, of all things, an attack ad about a non-existent South Carolina gas tax hike, Jake Lahut and Roger Sollenberger report.
All gas, still plenty of breaks. Haley hitting back at Trump sent shockwaves through New Hampshire, but it could still be too little too late, Lisa Kashinsky reports for Politico.
Grubgate. Mayra Flores, the Republican former Texas congresswoman running for her old seat, attempted to explain her bizarre scandal of stolen food pics on social media to Robert Downen of The Texas Tribune.
