Nikki Haley is having a moment

In the wake of the first Republican presidential primary debate of the 2024 election season, it's Vivek Ramaswamy, a political neophyte and self-proclaimed "anti-woke" crusader, who has emerged as the breakout GOP star to watch, winning the "online attention contest," according to The Washington Post, while enjoying rare praise from current nomination front-runner Donald Trump, who lauded Ramaswamy's "big WIN" that evening. Among a growing cohort of Republican insiders and observers, however, it's not Ramaswamy who merits the attention but former South Carolina Governor and onetime UN Ambassador Nikki Haley instead. With a solid debate performance and subsequent polling bump, Haley has become the "lone adult among the candidates" with a shot at overtaking Trump, according to Mark McKinnon at Vanity Fair. Ramaswamy may have become the post-debate media darling, agreed Brittany Bernstein at National Review, but it's Haley who "seems to have made the most of her time on the stage."

While still polling largely in the single digits, Haley is nevertheless clearly having a much-needed moment just as the Republican primary race is picking up steam. But can she make it last?

'Haley has surged'

Among those who have noticed Haley's momentum are none other than Trump's MAGA PAC Inc. pollster Tony Fabrizio, who warned donors and allies in a recent memo that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis now "finds himself with another challenger for a distant second place" beyond Ramaswamy. "Haley has surged," Fabrizio said, according to Axios, which obtained a copy of his memo, leading to a " statistical three-way tie" between her, DeSantis and Ramaswamy in New Hampshire's upcoming primary.

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That surge, however, is a modest one, even if it represents the "largest increase in support among Republican candidates" following the debate, according to a new Emerson College poll. Going from 2% to 7% overall, Haley's support "increased from about 2% to 9% among voters over 50," Polling Director Spencer Kimball said. Trump's support in the same demographic dropped by the same margin to 49%. And humble as Haley's jump may seem, "it's also no outlier," The Daily Beast reported, citing a Washington Post / FiveThirtyEight / Ipsos poll that had the number of debate viewers who said they would consider voting for Haley jump by 17 points following her performance. "I've been on the fence about Nikki for a long time," one voter who attended Haley's post-debate event in Indian Land, South Carolina, told The State. "The debate the other night brought me over to her side." The outlet noted that Haley's event was the "largest crowd the venue has seen."

Making a "tactical decision to refrain from substantive attacks on Trump" and instead focusing on "arguments about his unpopularity with the American people and many liabilities as a candidate" is what separated Haley from candidates like Chris Christie, according to David Faris (who also contributes to The Week) at Slate. This is "probably the only way that she — or anyone — can really reach Republican voters without alienating them," he added. Trump and Ramaswamy represent a faction of the GOP for whom politics is "essentially a form of entertainment," The New York Times' David Brooks stressed. Haley's debate strength was her ability to "look at the Trump/Ramaswamy wing and implicitly say: You children need to stop preening and deal with reality."

'The hell of her'

Strong debate performance notwithstanding, "I won't get fooled again," The New York Times' Frank Bruni countered. The Haley on the debate stage is not the Haley who willingly served in Trump's administration and will be the Haley who appears at future campaign events, Bruni insisted, calling each iteration "constructs, all creations, malleable, negotiable, tethered not to dependable principle but to reliable opportunism."

"That's the truth of her," Bruni concluded. "That's the hell of her."

"Haley has been all over the map for years now," agreed The Daily Beast's Matt Lewis. "One day she's courageous and impressive, and the next day she's a pathetic Trump toady." Vanity Fair's McKinnon seemed to agree, writing that just when I think she takes a bold and courageous position … she turns around and genuflects to MAGA-world."

Still, McKinnon concluded, "Haley's Comet could be a moonshot, but she could turn out to be the GOP's last, best hope."