Even though she is still far behind former President Donald Trump by a large margin, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is leading President Joe Biden in some polls. A Wall Street Journal poll placed Haley beside Biden as rivals in a hypothetical general election, and Haley came out with a whopping 17- point lead over the sitting president.
Shock new poll has Nikki Haley trouncing Biden by 17 POINTS in a head-to-head for the White House https://t.co/081pPtI5L3 pic.twitter.com/HLWzLjipnn
— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) December 10, 2023
As shown by the poll, Haley received 51% votes out of 20% respondents while Biden received 34%.
In a similar matchup between Biden and Trump, Trump had won with a four-point lead, scoring 47% percent support while Biden had 43%.
A Messenger/Harris poll conducted between Nov. 27 to Dec. 1 also found that the GOP presidential candidate has a 4-point lead over the president in a hypothetical match-up.
She was caught in a tie with DeSantis for second place in the primary. However, the polls give her more independent voters than DeSantis and Trump. While 37% of independent voters would back Trump, 40% say they would back Haley.
Haley’s surge in the polls came after the first GOP primary debate in August. At the time, DeSantis was seen as the real threat to another Trump candidacy, even though he still did not poll close to the former president.
A few major endorsements and campaign donations later, and Haley has been threatening to kick DeSantis to third place.
The Florida governor has criticized her for some of the donations her campaign received. During the fourth primary debate last week, he questioned whether the former UN ambassador stands for the American people or for her big liberal donors.
He also questioned her loyalty to conservative causes such as banning gender-affirming care and opposing bathroom laws, pointing out that she killed the laws during her time as former South Carolina’s governor even when she could have fought harder for it.
Biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy, another GOP presidential hopeful, also accused her of compromising on conservative values for campaign donations. Claiming that she left office bankrupt in 2017, Ramaswamy said, “That math does not add up. It adds up the fact that you are corrupt.”
Haley however dismissed DeSantis and Ramaswamy’s attacks against her as jealousy. “And in terms of these donors that are supporting me, they’re just jealous. They wish that they were supporting them,” she stated.