Dem
51
GOP
49
Nikki Haley's presidential campaign remains the longest of longshots, but it must be noted that when it comes to polling, she's surging at just the right time.
To start with, a new Suffolk University poll is the first poll of the cycle to put her in second place in Iowa. Obviously, it could be an outlier, but the gap between Haley (20%) and Ron DeSantis (13%) is outside the margin of error, so maybe not. Of course, they both still trail Donald Trump (54%) by a country mile.
Meanwhile, the newest from Emerson has Haley on the rise, with some of her new support coming out of the hide of Trump. In the previous iteration of this poll, in November, Trump was at 49% and Haley was at 18%. Now, he's at 44% and she's at 28%. That's a pretty big shift for her, though she's obviously still trailing by a fair bit.
Naturally, neither poll reflects the most recent debate (not likely to have much impact) nor the withdrawal of Chris Christie from the race (could have an impact, particularly in New Hampshire). There should be a raft of polls over the weekend, so as to get them in before Iowans head to their caucuses on Monday. So, we'll see if this week's events continue to give Haley momentum, or if she eventually bumps up against a ceiling.
Meanwhile, Asa Hutchinson—who is still pretending he is a presidential candidate—was interviewed yesterday and said he would "evaluate" his campaign after the Iowa caucuses. Most pollsters, including Suffolk, aren't even asking about him by name anymore. Consequently, he is in the group of candidates favored by the 1% of Iowans who support "someone else" other than Trump, Haley, DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy or Chris Christie. There is no circumstance in which a fraction of 1% is not terrible, and in a caucus situation, you can just round that down to zero right now. So, presumably he will be bidding farewell on Tuesday.
Further, if Suffolk has the right of it, and if Ron DeSantis really does finish third in Iowa, where does he go from there? What's the theory of his candidacy if he can't even outpace Haley with his target demo? Yes, he's got a giant ego, which makes it hard for him to admit defeat. But that same giant ego isn't going to want to go on to be humiliated in New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, etc. So, it's not impossible we could be down two GOP candidates as of Tuesday. (Z)