Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis set for first head-to-head debate

Two Republican presidential aspirants — Indian American Nikki Haley and Florida governor Ron DeSantis —  clash in the 2024 campaign’s first head-to-head debate Wednesday night in a bid to become the sole viable challenger to front-runner Donald Trump.

The only feasible way that the former president, still the dominant figure in the Republican Party, could face a true test in the primary is if all the Republican opposition to him is corralled by a single candidate.

Five days before the Iowa caucuses, Haley has narrowed the gap with Trump in New Hampshire to single digits, according to a new CNN poll, but he still has a meaningful lead in the state’s primary, which is just a week after Iowa.

Both Haley and DeSantis have offered distinctive visions of a way forward for the party and coherent platforms for a presidency, CNN noted.

The Florida governor has promised a more effective, disciplined form of Trump’s right-wing populism than the former president delivered in his first term.

READ: Nikki Haley slashes Trump’s lead in New Hampshire (January 9, 2024)

Haley is promising a return to more traditional pre-Trump conservatism, embracing an internationalist Ronald Reagan-style foreign policy and faulting Republicans, as well as Democrats, for running up the national debt.

She’s also promising to court voters who are not hard-core Republicans, a message that may have some potential since many hypothetical match-up polls show her beating President Joe Biden more handily than other Republican candidates.

“The only way we’re going to win the majority of Americans is if we go forward with a new generational leader that leaves the negativity and the baggage in the past and goes forward with the solutions for the future,” Haley said in a town hall meeting in Iowa on Tuesday.

Both Haley and DeSantis have gingerly navigated Trump’s criminal charges, CNN noted. Haley promises a relief from the “chaos” he initiates – a euphemistic appeal to Republican voters who are weary of the former president’s histrionics, scandals and legal thickets.

DeSantis pledges to be a more effective implementer of “Make America Great Again” policies.

Haley is riding a tide of momentum. The former US ambassador to the UN under Trump comes into the debate following CNN’s poll showing her ascendance in the Granite State.

Nikki Haley gaining ground in New Hampshire: poll (December 24, 2023)

This has increased pressure on former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to pull out of the race, since he’s vying for the same crossover independent and undeclared voters as Haley, and could potentially spoil her chances of beating Trump.

New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who has endorsed Haley and has long argued that a single anti-Trump candidate could beat Trump in the party primary, has been leading calls for Christie to quit.

In another sign of Haley’s growing strength, Trump has also been upping his attacks on his former Cabinet member, accusing her of opposing his ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries while he was president and criticizing her positions on immigration.