Nikki Haley heads into second GOP debate on the rise, making her a likely target

PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire - At a campaign event at a country club in Portsmouth on Thursday, James Peterson, a businessman, stunned Nikki Haley with a question she said she had never heard: One hundred years from now, how do you think history will remember Donald Trump?

She took a quick beat before diving into a measured, yet sharpened, critique of Trump and his administration.“Time does funny things. My thought will be that he was the right president at the right time,” she said, later making clear, “I don’t think he is the right president now.”

Such a thorny question might be just the type of preparation Ms Haley, 51, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, is looking for as she heads into the next Republican presidential debate on Wednesday with real momentum – and as the likely focus of political attacks.

After her last performance on the national debate stage,

in which she made a strong general election pitch, Ms Haley has seen gains in the polls, a rush of volunteers and swelling interest from early-state voters. Recent surveys have her running third in Iowa and New Hampshire and second in her home state of South Carolina.

Some of her top fund-raisers said donors who had been waiting on the sidelines for a Trump alternative to emerge were coalescing behind her. One major backer, Mr Eric Tanenblatt, an Atlanta businessman who has hosted three fund-raisers for Ms Haley since March, said the excitement around her candidacy has increased significantly in recent weeks.

“When she was here last week, we didn’t have to call people; people were calling us,” he said. He noted the size of her events has grown, “each one bigger than the one before.”

But even as Ms Haley looks to replicate her debate success next week,

the 2024 presidential race still appears to be Trump’s to lose.

Still, her appearances lately have drawn in moderates, independents and even some Democrats who say they like her fresh face and appeals to common sense and reason.

When a voter at the country club in Portsmouth pressed Ms Haley on how she would overcome Trump’s advantage, Ms Haley said she expected the field to winnow and to come to a “head-to-head” matchup in South Carolina.

Trump missing the first debate

and possibly the second was a mistake, she said.

“You can’t win the American people by being absent,” she said. NYTIMES