Opinion: Trump has a very potent argument to make against Nikki Haley

Editor’s Note: Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. His first book, “We Have Never Been Woke: Social Justice Discourse, Inequality and the Rise of a New Elite” is forthcoming from Princeton University Press. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

The contemporary GOP base is increasingly comprised of Americans who perceive themselves to be the “losers” in the knowledge economy and who seem to feel distant and mistrustful of mainstream institutions. The party, and especially its insurgent movements, are increasingly backed by small businesses and family capital. In the contemporary Republican Party, candidates who seem beholden to multinational corporations, foreign powers, bureaucrats, et al. are often suspect and are very vulnerable to being rejected by the contemporary GOP base.

Indeed, of the 13 candidates who made bids for the 2024 Republican nomination, the only “mainstream” or “establishment” candidates left as we’re heading into actual voting are former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (currently polling at less than 3% among the Republican base) and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (the top choice of 11% of GOP voters).

Three other candidates are attempting to style themselves as “populists,” even though their economic policies are basically identical to mainstream GOP orthodoxy: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur-turned-bestselling author Vivek Ramaswamy and former President Donald Trump (whose economic policies as president also followed the GOP mainstream).

Of the candidates in the establishment lane, Haley is the only candidate who seems to have a plausible shot at the nomination. However, as last week’s debate made clear, Haley may be highly vulnerable to concerns about undue influence from “the establishment” and other bugbears of the Republican base. As her rise results in more scrutiny, these perceptions could damage her already long-shot effort to dethrone Trump, the far-and-away frontrunner for the Republican nomination, whose shadow lingered heavily over the debate despite his physical absence.

Indeed, the surging GOP candidate finds herself in a tough dilemma: Many NeverTrump Republicans, foreign lobbying groups, big financiers and even some Democrats have begun to coalesce around her as the only remaining candidate with a plausible shot of pulling off an upset for the nomination. The resources being provided by these big-ticket donors are necessary to get her name and message out there and to expand her campaign operations nationwide, particularly since her rival is a household name who gets dozens of hours of free media a week and enjoys strong grassroots financial support. However, being embraced by these big-ticket donors is also a potential liability. If Haley appears to be the preferred candidate of Democrats, “globalists,” corporations and “the swamp,” then she risks seeming like the Hillary Clinton of the Republican Party.

Many of the attacks Haley faced at last week’s debate paint her exactly this way, exposing her vulnerability as she comes under scrutiny from her opponents. DeSantis and Ramaswamy both drew explicit comparisons between Clinton and Haley. In particular, they focused on how Haley leveraged her previous positions in public office to serve on boards for multinational corporations and to give well-remunerated speeches to stakeholders who may wish to peddle influence. Clinton was heavily criticized for similar behaviors.

In an apparent replay of the 2016 Democratic primaries, DeSantis asserted during the debate that “we know from her history, Nikki will cave to those big donors when it counts and that is not acceptable.”

Attack ads played during NewsNation’s debate coverage highlighted Haley’s previous comments that Clinton inspired her own run for office and compared the records of Haley and Clinton. The DeSantis campaign made a $1.54 million ad buy to broadcast this ad aggressively in Iowa as the country’s first caucus approaches.

Against DeSantis Haley has a strong retort to accusations of undue donor influence: It’s sour grapes. In the debate, she highlighted, correctly, that DeSantis took money from many of these same donors until they abandoned him in favor of Haley – he seems to be consistently losing ground to Trump despite their investments. This undermines DeSantis on electability and makes him look like a hypocrite at the same time. It was a highly effective move during the debate, garnering big applause.

Against Trump, however, she would be much more vulnerable to these accusations of corruption.

Trump himself is currently under investigation for financial improprieties (he denies wrongdoing). However, part of what made him popular during the 2016 campaign is that he was frank and unapologetic about his attempts to use money to curry influence with politicians. He claimed to have seen firsthand how politicians can be easily bought and sold if they had to look to millionaires and billionaires like himself for support.

Similarly, Trump was explicit that he always looks for ways to turn a profit. For example, he proudly broadcast how he exploited loopholes in the tax code to reduce his liability. His subsequent self-dealing – conducting official state events on properties he personally owned and charging the government for the tab, or opening a hotel in Washington just before his election and then hosting lobbyists and diplomats who had business with him in Washington – seemed less like corruption and more like business savvy to many. After all, he could always insist that, at the end of the day, he didn’t actually need more money, and as a result, wasn’t beholden to financial interests in the way others might be.

Likewise, although Trump has also received significant support from big donors and doled out apparent political favors in return, he has succeeded at convincing many of his voters that he’s unaccountable to those donors in practice. He won the 2016 election despite raising half as much money as Clinton, and spent $66 million of his own cash in his quest for the White House. When financiers tried to insist he change his positions on issues in exchange for support, he seemed comfortable telling them to take a hike. For example, he famously rejected support from the influential Koch network during the 2016 campaign and branded those who did accept Koch money as “puppets.”

In the current cycle, Haley is being aggressively championed by the Koch network. This will almost certainly be a point of contention later in the cycle.

Right now, it seems the former South Carolina governor’s best argument on this issue is the one she road-tested in Wednesday’s debate. Haley said that she’s happy to take the money from anyone who’s willing to offer it, but that money never changes her position on anything. Unfortunately for her, this maneuver is a demonstrated failure against Trump. Responding to similar accusations of corruption, Clinton asserted in 2016 that she has “never ever” let a donor influence her vote. It didn’t work well for her; Haley likely wouldn’t fare much better.

Up to now, Haley has largely tried to avoid antagonizing the former president. On the debate stage, for instance, she was the least critical out of all the remaining candidates (perhaps holding out hope of being Trump’s VP pick should he ultimately win the Republican nomination). However, if it eventually comes down to a bare-knuckled fight between Trump and Haley – as would have to happen for her to wrest the nomination from his grasp (shy of legal proceedings disqualifying him from office before the primary election wrapped, a long shot at best) – Haley would probably be quite vulnerable against the former president over her paid speeches, board positions and high-profile donors.

Compared to Vivek Ramaswamy (who, like Trump, is “independently” wealthy) or Ron DeSantis (who went out of his way to antagonize major corporations who heavily patronize his state), Haley is much more susceptible to Trump accusing her of being “bought and paid for.”

And even if Haley manages to avoid perceptions that her positions are directly influenced by donors, the mere fact that there is an apparent alignment between the goals and aspirations of her candidacy and multinational corporations, Wall Street executives, Democratic donors and foreign lobbying groups – such that they would all much rather have Haley in the White House than Trump – is only likely to enhance perceptions among the GOP base that Trump is on the right side of the cultural and socioeconomic divides while Haley in the White House would be a victory for “the establishment.”

In a world where Haley managed to nonetheless secure the GOP nomination and faces off against Biden, she wouldn’t be able to draw the same kind of contrast as someone like Trump, DeSantis or Ramaswamy. Even if they are faux populists, Haley is not positioning herself as a “populist” at all. She’s running as a politician who can work the establishment effectively instead of trying to burn it down. She’s positioning herself as someone with mainstream views and a solid record of accomplishments – much like Biden himself.

This might work for her in a general election, pulling away some of the moderates and independents who supported Biden in great numbers during the last cycle. But it presents her with an extremely fraught path in the GOP primary, undermining the likelihood that she’ll get to that contest at all.