Nikki Haley Rewarded in the Polls for Making the Case for Supporting Ukraine

Vivek Ramaswamy spent a lot of energy going after Haley on Ukraine in the last debate. Thirty-four percent of GOP primary voters think she won the debate. Twenty-nine percent think he lost.

Nikki Haley has been aggressively making the case for supporting Ukraine since the first day of her campaign. She has not backed off. She is being rewarded in the polls.

Vivek Ramaswamy, in contrast, has made the proliferation of utter nonsense about Ukraine the centerpiece of his campaign. He is sinking.

More than a third of Republican primary voters polled said Haley won last week's debate, while 29% say that Ramaswamy performed the worst.

Haley is closing in on second place candidate Ron DeSantis, whose position on Ukraine is muddy at best, in the Iowa polls. DeSantis and Ramaswamy are both trending down in the polls. In June, Haley was at 5% and DeSantis was at 28%. In a poll from Iowa last week, Haley had climbed to 18% while DeSantis dropped to 20%.

In a statistical confirmation that bad bad behavior is rewarded appropriately, Ramaswamy is at 4% in Iowa.

Haley also has more money to spend in the primaries than DeSantis, $9.1 million to $5 million.

All the candidates for president have higher unfavorable ratings than favorable, except for Haley who is 34% favorable/34% unfavorable - an incredibly well-liked candidate by today's measures.

While all these candidates lag significantly behind Trump in polling and fundraising, one of them will emerge as the final opponent to Trump. That candidate will likely then have tons of fundraising support. Why?

Only 31% of voters want Trump to run again - only 62% of the voters who say they voted for him in 2020 say they want him to run again. Biden, as an aside, is even lower in this category with 25%.

Many major donors are waiting to see if a candidate can make a credible run against Trump. Haley is making that case.

There is a path to victory for Haley.