Investment Strategies / Mechanical Investing❤
No. of Recommendations: 5
Well, this should be interesting.
The influential network associated with billionaire Charles Koch will throw its money and influence behind former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary, the group announced Tuesday.
The decision could dramatically reshape the Republican field -- roughly seven weeks before the Iowa caucuses -- as Americans for Prosperity Action deploys its vast resources and standing army of conservative activists on behalf of the former South Carolina governor.The network has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in previous election cycles and has already begun to run ads, like "Unelectable," which describes Trump as a serial lose.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/28/politics/koch-netwo...
No. of Recommendations: 5
It's interesting not just for what the Koch network might do in support of Haley, but also what it says about their read of the race.
The Kochs don't financially support candidates in every cycle. They ended up sitting out the 2016 primary (and of course the 2020 primary), because there was no practical way for any of the candidates to beat Trump. So presumably, they believe that Haley has a primary path to victory.
It's kind of hard to see it - but maybe? I guess it's a bet that she can win South Carolina. SC is the biggest delegate state of the first five contests, and it's a "winner-take-most" state. If she can actually beat Trump there, she has an outside chance of taking the delegate lead even if she doesn't win any of the other ones, since IA, NH and NV have proportional allocation of delegates. If she can hang close in the first four contests - even losing 70-30 to Trump - she could still come out of SC with an actual delegate lead.
That's if she can win SC. Not sure she can - she's trailing Trump 50-20, and Trump is likely the second choice for a lot of DeSantis voters if he doesn't make it that far. But I guess that's the thin, unlikely path for her.
Or else they think she'll be a solid candidate in 2028.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Once the GOP primary field consolidates things will change...
No. of Recommendations: 1
Maybe.
But Trump is running near 60% in primary polling. So even if everyone except (for example) Haley dropped out, and none of those supporters of other candidates went to Trump, he still wins the nomination. Something else would have to change amongst the Republican voters.
No. of Recommendations: 3
But Trump is running near 60% in primary polling. So even if everyone except (for example) Haley dropped out, and none of those supporters of other candidates went to Trump, he still wins the nomination. Something else would have to change amongst the Republican voters.
Yeah, it's still a long shot.
The one thing Haley has in her favor is the calendar. Three things about the calendar help her:
1) SC is early in the primary calendar, and is the first "winner-take-most" state. If she could win outright (and that's a mighty big if), she has a decent chance of becoming the delegate leader at that point - something that never happened during the 2016 primary, where after the narrow Iowa loss Trump led in delegates from that point forward. If there's an actual non-Trump candidate who is leading, you could see the "non-Trump" and the "I like Trump but think he'd have trouble beating Biden" coalition consolidate. But of course, she'd need De Santis out of the race soon after SC.
2) Unlike 2016, there's eight states (plus DC and the VI) that have primaries/caucuses before Super Tuesday - so a momentum candidate has a little more "space" in the calendar to pick up visible wins before the big blast on March 5.
3) Florida isn't a Super Tuesday state, and California is. So unlike 2016, where Cruz was almost certain to hang in the race through Super Tuesday, it is at least a little plausible that De Santis might drop out earlier.
But that's still very, very unlikely. Trump is super-popular in the GOP. Once you get past SC, it's hard to see another state that Haley could win. And De Santis has more than enough money and plausibility to hang in the race until Trump clinches, and no real incentive to drop out.
No. of Recommendations: 2
albaby1: The one thing Haley has in her favor...
Okay, I have to ask the obvious: will republicans vote for a woman at the top of the ticket? And I don't mean 90% of voting republicans, I mean 99% of voting republicans.
