All the signs that Trump is not on a straight path to the White House
DES MOINES – Despite Donald Trump’s historic win in Iowa, the former president does not have a straight path to the Republican nomination or presidency, not least because of the flurry of legal actions against him.
On Tuesday, Trump arrived in court for a defamation trial brought by a New York writer who a jury said last year had been sexually abused by the former US president.
Next month, the US Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments over whether a constitutional clause banning those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office applies to Trump.
And the Republican frontrunner faces a criminal trial over the attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss that is due to start on 5 March, or “Super Tuesday”, the day when 14 states vote in the presidential nominating process.
Nearly a quarter of Trump’s supporters say he should not be the Republican nominee for president if he is convicted of a crime, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll from December – although many in his party see the prosecutions as a “witch hunt”.
In May, the classified documents case is scheduled to begin, in which Trump is accused of illegally storing documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and obstructing the US government’s attempts to retrieve them.
If Trump is undone by any of the challenges that lie ahead, the race for second place in the Republican nomination contest suddenly takes on new significance.
Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley has insisted she still has a path to beating Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, saying: “We’re just getting started.”
Haley had hoped to run the former president a close second in Iowa, but was forced to settle for third place, a couple of points behind Ron DeSantis, but a whopping 33 points behind Trump.
Under intense pressure to pull out a win in next-to-vote New Hampshire, she told an interviewer the race for the nomination was not settled. “Iowa was the first. Then New Hampshire is the first in the nation. Then we go to the first in the south and South Carolina,” she told CBS News on Tuesday morning, having already flown to New Hampshire. “This is what plays out in presidential elections. It’s a marathon, it’s not a sprint. And we’re taking it one step at a time.”
Haley, 51, a former South Carolina governor, repeated her claim the contest was now a two-person race between her and 77-year-old Trump, as her prospects in the next states to vote were better than those of DeSantis.
“We’re going to continue doing what we’ve done for 11 months and it’s paid off. That’s why we’re a stone’s throw away from Trump and it’s why I think we’re going to be even stronger in New Hampshire,” she said.
New Hampshire, which holds its primary next Tuesday, has a reputation for being more libertarian and less evangelical than Iowa. An average of polls by Real Clear Politics puts Trump in first place on 44, with Haley in second on 29. DeSantis is polling in the single digits.
Those polls also include data about Chris Christie, who dropped out last week but did not endorse Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who ended his campaign on Monday night and backed Trump. The Haley camp is hoping Christie may yet come out and endorse her and at the very least that some of his former supporters turn out for her.
Another factor she hopes will help is that while around 260,000 voters in New Hampshire are registered with either the Democratic Party or Republican, more than 340,000 are unregistered and have the right to take part.
Her supporters have repeatedly said her more moderate positions would help her in a general election against Biden.
There are other issues in play. By coming second in Iowa, the stalled campaign of DeSantis, 45, got a new lease of life, and he flew to South Carolina, which holds its primary on 3 February and where he hopes to eat into Haley’s home state support. “We’ve got our ticket punched out of Iowa,” DeSantis told supporters in West Des Moines on Monday.
Trump’s win not only heaps new pressure to deliver on his rivals, it turns fresh attention to Biden and what many Democrats feel was a foolish decision to seek a second term, given the still lacklustre state of the economy, his low approval rating and his age being a turn-off for many voters.
In the days ahead there will be more demands for him to step aside to allow a genuine primary, or else a convention this summer that could pick a younger candidate with less baggage – and potentially more of a chance against Trump.
Polls show 70 per cent of Americans do not want to see a Trump-Biden rematch in November.
