Three obstacles stand in the way of Donald Trump’s return to the White House in 2025: Nikki Haley, Joe Biden and their pending accounts with the American justice system. Four, if we count the candidate’s ability to self-sabotage. In the latest episode of angry self-conceit, after winning decisively in the Iowa caucuses and by a narrow margin in the New Hampshire primary, Trump threatened Haley’s donors with “permanently” expelling them from his movement.
“Anyone who makes a contribution to Cabeza de Chorlito – a derogatory nickname for the former governor of South Carolina – will, from this moment on, be permanently excluded from the MAGA community (from its flagship motto, Make America Great Again ),” the former president published on his social network, Truth Social. “We don’t want them, and we won’t accept them, because we put America first, and we always will!”
Beyond the authoritarian tone that it gives off, this positioning denotes concern about the resistance of Haley, the only alternative contender to the tycoon standing in the Republican primaries, who has promised not to abandon the electoral race. Although she served in his administration as ambassador to the UN, Haley represents the other Republican Party – the “old guard”, in the words of former candidate Ron DeSantis -, and seeks to unite the anti-Trump vote of the most Republicans. moderate and traditional.
Trump’s discomfort was evident when he took the stage after beating her, by just eleven points, in New Hampshire. “This is not your typical victory speech,” he said, his face angry. And it had nothing to do with the one he had given a week before, after sweeping Iowa. In fact, in six days, his message changed radically: he abandoned the magnanimous speech, in which he called for “unity of Republicans, Democrats, conservatives and progressives”, and went on to attack the Republican.
“Trump is completely unhinged,” Haley responded on Fox News. “A president is supposed to serve all the people of America and he’s deciding he has a club and he’s going to ban people from entering and leaving it.” After knowing the latest conviction of Trump, this Friday, which will force him to pay 83.3 million dollars to the columnist E. Jean Carroll for defamation, and which is added to another previous conviction for sexual abuse and another for fraud with the Organization Trump, Haley assured that the country must turn the page: “while we talk about Trump, we are not talking about fixing the problems at the border, or stopping inflation.”
The tycoon’s strategy of threatening his competitor’s donors, for the moment, does not seem to have had any effect. With few exceptions, like metal entrepreneur Andy Sabin, who in an interview called Trump the winner and said that “Haley needs to leave,” because, sooner or later, “her money will run out: why finance someone you know?” who has no chance?”
“This race is far from over,” repeated the former governor of South Carolina, precisely in that state, which will hold primaries on February 24. “We’ve raised a million dollars since I gave that speech,” she said, referring to the one she gave the night after the New Hampshire primary, “and we’ve done it online, with small donors.” Specifically, “we have had 200,000 donors from all 50 states. 95% of those donations were $200 or less.”
If Trump manages to decisively defeat Haley in South Carolina – as the polls indicate, which give him a 40-point lead – it is foreseeable that the former ambassador’s candidacy will crumble, as she will have a difficult time convincing her donors that continue injecting millions into a campaign without projection.
But, to become president, the magnate will most likely have to defeat his archenemy Joe Biden in the November elections: the only person who has been able to win an election against him, despite the fact that Trump continues to repeat that his victory It was the product of fraud. The latest YouGov survey leaves both candidates almost on par: Trump with 44% of voting intentions and Biden with 43%.
Polls also say that voters, especially moderate Republicans and independents, would be more reluctant to vote for Trump if he is convicted in one of the four criminal trials he faces, in which he is charged with 91 different crimes in New York. , Washington, Georgia and Florida.
A conviction would not prohibit him from running: the US Constitution allows a convict to run even from prison. Those who do have such a prohibition on their table are the nine justices of the US Supreme Court, who on February 8 have scheduled the initial hearing of the case that will decide if their ballot can be in those states that have denied it – Colorado and Maine – for their “participation in an insurrection”, that of the assault on the Capitol, on January 6, 2021.
