5 things to watch for at Nikki Haley’s CNN town hall in New Hampshire

By Eric Bradner, CNN

(CNN) — Nikki Haley is set to participate in a CNN town hall Thursday just days before a New Hampshire primary that the onetime South Carolina governor hopes will shake loose former President Donald Trump’s hold on the 2024 Republican race.

Haley’s campaign has long viewed the Granite State — where the GOP primary electorate includes more moderates and independents than other early-voting states — as her best shot at a win.

Trump, whose campaign in recent weeks has identified Haley as a threat, is deploying racist dog whistles against his former US ambassador to the United Nations while escalating his attacks on her on social media and the airwaves.

Here are five things to watch for at Thursday night’s town hall, which will take place at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, and will be moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper:

How will Haley hit Trump?

Wary of alienating the huge portion of the GOP base that remains loyal to the former president, Haley in recent days has lumped Trump together with President Joe Biden — swiping at both of them with an argument for generational change.

“The majority of Americans think that having two 80-years-olds running for president is not what they want,” she told a crowd Tuesday in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. “You’ve got two people who spent trillions of dollars in debt that our kids are never going to forgive us. Biden and Trump both did that.”

Haley has faced calls to take on Trump more aggressively — particularly from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who used his speech dropping out of the primary last week to challenge the non-Trump Republicans remaining in the race.

“Anyone who is unwilling to say (Trump) is unfit to be president of the United States,” Christie said, “is unfit themselves to be president of the United States.”

Haley could benefit from Christie’s exit. He’d made New Hampshire the sole focus of his campaign, and polls had shown him in the low double digits. A CNN poll earlier this month, conducted before Christie dropped out of the race, found that Haley was the clear second choice among his supporters — with 65% saying they would support her were Christie not running. Fewer than 1 in 10 of his backers chose other candidates, and 13% said they would not vote.

Does she respond to Trump’s racist attacks?

In a post Tuesday on his Truth Social platform, Trump slammed Haley while referring to her first name, Nimarata — which he misspelled as Nimrada. Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa and took her husband’s last name after they married.

Trump also recently amplified a post that falsely claimed Haley was ineligible to run for president because her parents were not United States citizens at the time of her birth. Haley was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, and is a US citizen.

The attacks echo Trump’s smears against former President Barack Obama. Trump was a chief promoter of the racist lie that Obama was not born in the US and was ineligible to be president. Trump also regularly emphasizes Obama’s middle name, Hussein, at campaign rallies.

His attacks came the same day Haley was asked by Fox News host Brian Kilmeade if the GOP was a racist party.

“We’re not a racist country, Brian. We’ve never been a racist country,” she said. “Our goal is to make sure that today is better than yesterday. Are we perfect? No. But our goal is to always make sure we try and be more perfect every day that we can.”

Haley’s remarks raised eyebrows. It came weeks after she was asked at a New Hampshire town hall to explain the causes of the Civil War and did not immediately mention slavery.

How she responds to Trump’s race-focused attacks will be a key question Thursday night.

Setting expectations for New Hampshire

Polls have shown Haley within striking distance of Trump in New Hampshire. But after Trump’s dominant victory in the Iowa caucuses, anything short of a race-jolting victory in Tuesday’s primary might not be enough for Haley to slow the former president’s march to a third consecutive GOP nomination.

New Hampshire’s primary electorate is the most moderate of the four early-voting states on the GOP calendar, thanks in part to rules that allow those without a party affiliation to participate. While that’s an advantage for Haley, it also means that if she can’t win there, she might not be able to beat Trump anywhere else.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, Haley’s most influential supporter in the state, said on Fox News this week that if Haley can “shock the system” Tuesday, “that would be a great reset for the for the entire election.”

However, he also predicted she would finish a “strong second” — not exactly a shock to the system.

Balancing appeals with South Carolina in mind

While New Hampshire’s GOP primary electorate is relatively moderate, South Carolina’s is much more conservative — and even though it’s Haley’s home state, polls show Trump is well ahead there.

If Haley defeats Trump in New Hampshire (or delivers the “strong second” that Sununu predicted), all eyes would be on the Palmetto State’s February 24 primary and on whether Haley can capitalize on that momentum to win with a much more representative slice of the Republican electorate.

It partially explains Haley’s balancing act — trying to win in New Hampshire while not alienating conservatives in other states as the race moves forward.

That look ahead could account for Haley’s reticence to attack Trump in more direct ways. Though she frequently criticizes the former president for refusing to debate and invokes his age, she also defends the policies of his presidency.

What about DeSantis?

The lead-up to the Iowa caucuses was all about the race for second place between Haley and Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor won that fight, nudging Haley out though both finished well behind Trump.

Now, Haley says it’s a two-person race — even though DeSantis is still in it. She announced she would skip pre-New Hampshire debates scheduled to be hosted by ABC News and CNN, saying she would only appear if Trump did.

Will she continue to attack DeSantis, as she did for weeks before Iowa voted? Based on her response Tuesday to CNN’s Dana Bash after she was asked about DeSantis traveling to South Carolina that day to campaign, Haley might not.

“Look, it really doesn’t matter to me why he went there. I’m sure he had a great time. South Carolina is a great state. But he’s in single digits in South Carolina and single digits in New Hampshire. He’s been invisible in both states,” she said.

“He is not my concern. I’m going after Trump.”

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