(HorizonPost.com) – Nikki Haley spent the week following her third-place finish in the Iowa caucus full of bluster, claiming that the GOP primary had now become a 2-person race, not between first-place finisher Donald Trump and second-place finisher Ron DeSantis, but between her and Trump, Fox News reported.
While campaigning in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Haley told Fox News that Donald Trump is the candidate she is “going for.”
Meanwhile, Governor DeSantis told voters in Hampton, New Hampshire on Wednesday that it was he and not Nikki Haley who finished in second place in Iowa, adding, “that’s just the reality.” DeSantis said he didn’t know how Haley’s campaign planned to “spin that.”
But spin it, they did.
Haley told Fox that she started in Iowa polling at only 2 percent and ended with 20 percent (technically 19.1 percent). Haley declared the 17-point shift was proof of her “momentum” and said if anyone can’t see it, “that’s their problem.”
Haley vowed that her campaign momentum would “continue to go further,” noting that in New Hampshire she is “way above 30 percent.” She insisted that Governor DeSantis is “invisible” in both New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Haley told Fox that Governor DeSantis is polling closer to zero than he is to her, suggesting that the problem isn’t her campaign, which she declared “strong,” but DeSantis’ survival. She said in both New Hampshire and South Carolina, the GOP primary is a 2-person race between her and Trump, so her campaign would focus on Trump.
Even with Haley polling above 30 percent in New Hampshire, she is still far behind frontrunner Donald Trump. But Haley told Fox News that her campaign’s goal would be to try to narrow the gap by going after Donald Trump.
However, Governor DeSantis poured cold water on Haley’s aspirations, telling Fox that she “cannot beat Donald Trump in New Hampshire” and she won’t be able to catch up with him in her home state of South Carolina. “That’s just the reality,” DeSantis said.
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