'The only thing left to do': Trump campaign turns its fire on Nikki Haley to blunt her rise

Allies of former President Donald Trump say his campaign’s decision to begin hammering Nikki Haley reflects a new dynamic in the Republican presidential race.

Haley, the former South Carolina governor, has overtaken Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for second place, they believe, and is emerging as the strongest challenger to Trump in the early nominating contests, which begin Jan. 15 in Iowa.

The new reality, a half-dozen Trump campaign insiders and other aligned operatives said, is that Haley — not DeSantis, who has staked his campaign’s success on a strong Iowa showing — is positioned to finish second to Trump there, perhaps elevating her in the following week’s New Hampshire primary, in which polls already show her in second place.

This week, Trump’s team uncorked a 30-second ad in New Hampshire that cast Haley as weak on immigration. The attack was the first TV assault directly from Trump’s campaign, but it followed weeks of attacks by MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC that went on the air in the state last month with a spot scrutinizing Haley’s record as governor of South Carolina.

“It imposes a ceiling” on Haley’s rise, a source familiar with the Trump campaign strategy said of the new ad.

Asked whether the campaign viewed Haley as its biggest challenge, a Trump adviser said: “We will still smack Ron around, because why not, and we don’t really see her as a threat, but we understand that the donors are going to try and prop her up.”

“We get where the money is going,” the adviser added. “But we put Ron on life support, and now it’s time to do the same with Nikki.”

The anti-Haley strategy calls back to how aggressively Trump went after DeSantis early in 2023, when he was polling much closer to Trump — and briefly