Conventional wisdom doesn’t apply in unconventional times, plus two not-so-secret rules of presidential politics.
Back in 2017, film director Judd Apatow shared an only slightly tongue in cheek rule about presidential politics: the funnier candidate always wins.
“Reagan was funny. Bill Clinton was funny. Bush was funnier than Gore. Obama was funnier than probably anybody who’s ever run for office.” Even though the president-elect [Trump] rarely laughs, Apatow says, and “has a demented sense of humor, Trump is way funnier than Hillary Clinton.”
The Apatow Rule is adjacent to the Brad Berens Rule of presidential politics: if it’s a candidate’s turn to get a party’s nomination, that candidate always loses.
I first saw this in 1996 when Bob Dole ran against incumbent Bill Clinton. Dole had unsuccessfully sought the nomination several times before. In 1996, no other GOP candidate had enough juice with the party establishment to beat Dole for the nomination, but that wasn’t enough for him to win the general election.
This isn’t only a Republican phenomenon: we saw the same thing in 2016 when there was no Democratic nominee who could beat the Clinton political machine, which meant it was Hillary Clinton’s turn to be the nominee. She lost.
I could make the same argument for Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004, and McCain in 2008: each time, they got the nomination because it was their turn. They each had establishment backing, and nobody could outmaneuver them when it came to internal party politics, but internal party politics don’t matter as much in a general election.
This is good news for Nikki Haley because she is, in a bizarre way, running against two incumbents, Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Although there are immense differences between Biden and Trump, when compared to Haley those differences start to fade away.
Both men are elderly (Biden is 81 and Trump is 77), and their ages give pause to people who hang out with other octogenarians (parents, grandparents) and wouldn’t want those people to have the nuclear codes. Also, many voters under 25 (except for PoliSci majors) have trouble seeing much difference between two old white guys.
Haley turned 52 last week.
Moving back to the Brad Berens Rule, both Biden and Trump have their respective party establishment’s support locked up, and both deny that the other won the 2020 election legitimately. It’s Biden’s turn. It’s Trump’s turn. That gives Haley an advantage.
There’s more.
Trump’s opposite kinds of momentum
Last week, I found it unsettling when all the big news outlets called New Hampshire for Trump when less than 10% of precincts had called in results. I can’t tell if this is because big news likes how Trump is good for ratings and circulation, or if it’s because big news has unwarranted confidence in its predictive models. Probably both.
Likewise, I’ve seen story after story since the New Hampshire primary confidently saying that if Haley doesn’t win her home state of South Carolina on February 24, then it’s all over for her campaign. That’s hard for me to swallow when there are still 47 other primaries (the District of Columbia plus every state except Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina) after the South Carolina election.
In a conventional election, it might be true that Trump’s political momentum would be unstoppable, but this is far from a conventional election.
Also, Trump’s other kind of momentum is his increasing legal jeopardy.
Never before has the apparent front runner for a party’s nomination (Trump) just suffered an $83.3 Million judgment in a civil suit about sexual assault (on top of the prior $5 Million).
Never before has the apparent front runner faced 91 felony charges across multiple jurisdictions. For the MAGA loyalists, it’s an article of faith that all these charges are bogus, but if convictions start to accumulate for Trump at least some of that faith will falter. More importantly, the independents and traditional conservatives will look elsewhere.
That’s good for Haley. The longer she can hang on, positioning herself as a conservative, no-drama alternative to Trump, the longer she can watch Trump’s legal woes unravel more and more of his support. We might even see a contested Republican convention, which hasn’t happened since Ford v. Reagan in 1976.
Silent Voters
We saw the pollsters completely blow it in 2016 when they dismissed Trump’s candidacy. Later, the “Shy Trump Voter” hypothesis circulated, suggesting that survey respondents were embarrassed to admit they planned to vote for Trump.
I’ve never been confident in the Shy Trump Voter hypothesis, but if the general election winds up a repeat of 2020, then I think Biden will win because this time shy voters will be quietly against Trump. They just won’t want to say so out loud because of the full-throated support for Trump coming from Fox News, OAN, and NewsMax.
It’s another story if it’s Biden v. Haley in the general. In that case, I think Haley will win.
Haley’s race and gender
Haley is a woman of color. Her parents are Indian immigrants. Her birth name was Nimrata Nikki Randhawa. She took her husband Michael’s last name after their marriage. Haley’s race and gender neutralize the similar race and gender of Vice President Kamala Harris as differentiators in the general.
On abortion, at least one liberal woman I chatted with has the impression that Haley is more moderate and centrist than DeSantis and the MAGA crowd, which is troubling. Haley’s voting record from her time as the Governor of South Carolina was staunchly anti abortion, but she has backed away from abortion as a campaign issue in order to appeal to both sides. This is Machiavellian but effective.
If Haley becomes the Republican nominee, then voting for her will be on the table for any female voter who has been impatiently waiting for the chance to have a woman in the Oval Office since women got the ability to vote in 1920.
That’s a long time, and it’s bad for Biden.
Haley’s biggest challenge is, of course, money, but if she can keep her pride of billionaire backers forking over cash to sustain her campaign, then time is on her side.
It’s much too early for Nikki Haley to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.
Note: to get essays like this one—plus a whole lot more—delivered straight to your inbox, please subscribe to my free weekly newsletter!
Leave a Reply