Dem
51
GOP
49
The 2016 Republican primaries were characterized by a large field of well-known and less well-known politicians attacking each other in the hopes of knocking off all the others so it would become a two-person race: them vs. Donald Trump. That didn't work out so well for them.
Now there are signs of a repeat performance. A super PAC aligned with Ron DeSantis is now running an ad attacking... Nikki Haley, of all people, despite her being down in the weeds in all polls. The super PAC, called Never Back Down, has accused her of auditioning to be Trump's running mate. You can't make this stuff up. She is not a fire-breathing election denier and has no chance at being Trump's running mate, although conceivably she could be DeSantis'. If Trump is the nominee and wants a female running mate, our guess is that Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who is definitely auditioning for the job, will be much higher on the list than Haley.
But why is the super PAC attacking Haley instead of Trump? The answer is probably that DeSantis has fallen so far in the polls that he is getting close to the rest of the pack—Haley, Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson, and a bunch of total unknowns. That's not where DeSantis expected to be. He thought he would go man-to-man with Trump and now he's down in the weeds with the also-rans. If he is not careful, he could end up in third or fourth place one of these days. So he has to knock out the other minor players first so then it will be choice between him and Trump.
This is exactly the 2016 scenario, when all the not-Trump candidates battled each other and not Trump. The result was they mangled one another and Trump escaped unscathed. They apparently don't see that they are just rerunning the 2016 scenario, most likely with the same result.
Why is the super PAC going after Haley rather than, say, Pence or Scott? And why now? Haley had the audacity to take a potshot at DeSantis for his attitude toward the Walt Disney Corporation. She even invited the company to move north and set up shop in South Carlina. DeSantis apparently didn't like that, even though it would cost the company billions to relocate. The anti-Haley ad included a poll asking whether she should be nicknamed Mickey Haley or Nikki Mouse.
What is interesting here is that DeSantis is looking for a nickname for Haley. Welcome to the third grade playground. Grown-ups don't do this kind of stuff. DeSantis thinks that by mimicking Trump, voters will love him. He's almost certainly wrong. People who like Trump are going to vote for the real thing, not a Mickey Mouse imitation. People who don't like the real thing are going to look elsewhere (Hutchinson? Chris Christie or Chris Sununu if they jump in?)
Curt Anderson, a veteran Republican strategist, summed up DeSantis' ploy: "Attacking candidates with no votes does not have the upside of gaining votes." (V)