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Now that she’s the last Republican standing against former president Donald Trump, I asked my Post Opinions colleague Karen Tumulty: Does that strategy makes sense? How much does Nikki Haley’s gender matter in this race?
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Alexi McCammond: I’ve been a little surprised that Nikki Haley has been on the rise with an electorate that is otherwise enamored with Donald Trump, who is definitely not respectful of women, to say the least. What do you think of how Haley has used her status as the only woman in the race?
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Karen Tumulty: Gender is tricky for Haley for two reasons: First, and probably most important, is that conservatives are suspicious of identity politics. Second, there’s a lot of research that shows it’s harder for a woman to win support when she is running for executive office. So Haley goes about it cautiously.
Alexi: How so?
Karen: She talks about her opponents as “the fellas” and makes jokes that her five-inch heels are weapons. In both cases, it’s a way of showing strength and portraying herself as an alpha female.
Alexi: Is that how women must operate to be successful in politics? Hillary Clinton wasn’t necessarily seen as an attack dog. Ditto Carly Fiorina.
Karen: Actually, remember Hillary’s 3 a.m. phone call ad in 2008? It suggested Barack Obama was unprepared for the tough decisions that a president has to make. And Carly Fiorina was running on her record as a CEO.
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Alexi: I was still in high school for the ’08 primary. 🙈 But I do remember Fiorina’s campaign! I was in New Hampshire for the 2016 primary, actually. Sometimes I wonder if we should even care that Haley is a woman. Or care about gender at all when considering a candidate’s qualifications.
Karen: It makes a difference to have different perspectives and life experiences represented. Kay Bailey Hutchison (a former Republican senator from Texas) once told me that when she got to the Senate, she discovered that federally funded medical research was generally conducted with male subjects. She got that changed.
Alexi: That’s a great story and so true that different perspectives, of course, make for better solutions.
What’s happening with the Republican primaries? We’ll text you.
Karen: It says a lot that the last candidate left standing against Trump is a woman. I think she has employed her gender shrewdly in this race. Don’t forget: This isn’t, as they say, Nikki Haley’s first rodeo.
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Alexi: Yeehaw to that! 🤠 Stay warm in New Hampshire, please!
🙅🏽♀️ 🙅🏽♀️ 🙅🏽♀️
The next word
It’s true Haley has to be cautious about how and when she brings up her gender, and she deserves credit for how she has managed the balancing act. You might roll your eyes when Haley makes a joke about her heels — or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) — but we really should be talking about how wild it is that a woman is Trump’s biggest primary threat right now.
I mean, the GOP is not exactly for the girlies. Consider this research, which shows that registered Republicans are less likely to vote for female candidates than Democrats, and Republicans view women as more liberal candidates than men, even when they’re not.
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Moreover, Republicans have been especially unpopular with women in the post-Roe era. The party’s voters don’t seem to mind that Trump has been in court this week defending himself against defamation claims from E. Jean Carroll, the writer whom a jury found him liable for sexually abusing in the mid-’90s. (Trump denies the claims.) Some on the right are even trying to make it harder for women to divorce their husbands!
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I don’t believe a President Haley would be the best choice for women overall, but she’s certainly a bright spot for women on the right. She has set up “Women for Nikki” volunteer groups in every early primary and caucus state through Super Tuesday, and she was the sole female voice at all of the GOP primary debates, where abortion restrictions were a big part of the discussion. That means something.
Judging by the polls in New Hampshire, Haley likely won’t be the 2024 nominee. But her campaign has revealed a hopeful space for non-MAGA women in the GOP.
The question now is: Will the Republican Party welcome more troublemaker women like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) or those with broader appeal like Haley?
🖥️ 🖥️ 🖥️
r/Politics
The subreddit r/Astrology is one of the many I follow, and just last week there was a hidden political nugget in the comments. The user Potato_wedge was seeking interpretations on an upcoming planetary alignment: “April looks really intense,” they wrote, noting that Mercury will be in retrograde. “Not only do we start the month with an eclipse but we have a comet at the same time. This is immediately followed by the Saturn and mars conjunction ... Overall it looks really volatile this spring into summer.”
One commenter said it “probably just means Nikki Haley gets the nomination over Trump then 😂.” Another user wrote back: “If that happens maybe we’ll also get Newsom or Whitmer on the Democratic side 🙏🏽.”
Here’s hoping astrologers are better at predicting politics than pollsters.
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Brain dump
- Abortion, every day: Feminist writer Jessica Valenti published her remarks at a Senate briefing about abortion and threats posed by the GOP. Read them here.
- What in the world was Fani Willis thinking? Post columnist Ruth Marcus shares her thoughts about the relationship drama coming out of Georgia. Get the tea.
- Eugene Robinson said it best: “Somewhere, in some magic kingdom, Mickey Mouse must be laughing” at DeSantis’s failed 2024 campaign. Laugh along.
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Nikki Haley wants GOP voters to elect a woman to the White House, but it can’t be just any woman. The next president must not offend the Republican Party’s masculine sensibilities, so the former U.N. ambassador has presented herself as “a badass woman” who wears high heels as “ammunition.” Kicking enemies with those bad boys, she often says, will hurt a lot more.
Now that she’s the last Republican standing against former president Donald Trump, I asked my Post Opinions colleague Karen Tumulty: Does that strategy makes sense? How much does Nikki Haley’s gender matter in this race?
Alexi McCammond: I’ve been a little surprised that Nikki Haley has been on the rise with an electorate that is otherwise enamored with Donald Trump, who is definitely not respectful of women, to say the least. What do you think of how Haley has used her status as the only woman in the race?
Karen Tumulty: Gender is tricky for Haley for two reasons: First, and probably most important, is that conservatives are suspicious of identity politics. Second, there’s a lot of research that shows it’s harder for a woman to win support when she is running for executive office. So Haley goes about it cautiously.
Alexi: How so?
Karen: She talks about her opponents as “the fellas” and makes jokes that her five-inch heels are weapons. In both cases, it’s a way of showing strength and portraying herself as an alpha female.
Alexi: Is that how women must operate to be successful in politics? Hillary Clinton wasn’t necessarily seen as an attack dog. Ditto Carly Fiorina.
Karen: Actually, remember Hillary’s 3 a.m. phone call ad in 2008? It suggested Barack Obama was unprepared for the tough decisions that a president has to make. And Carly Fiorina was running on her record as a CEO.
Alexi: I was still in high school for the ’08 primary. 🙈 But I do remember Fiorina’s campaign! I was in New Hampshire for the 2016 primary, actually. Sometimes I wonder if we should even care that Haley is a woman. Or care about gender at all when considering a candidate’s qualifications.
Karen: It makes a difference to have different perspectives and life experiences represented. Kay Bailey Hutchison (a former Republican senator from Texas) once told me that when she got to the Senate, she discovered that federally funded medical research was generally conducted with male subjects. She got that changed.
Alexi: That’s a great story and so true that different perspectives, of course, make for better solutions.
What’s happening with the Republican primaries? We’ll text you.
Karen: It says a lot that the last candidate left standing against Trump is a woman. I think she has employed her gender shrewdly in this race. Don’t forget: This isn’t, as they say, Nikki Haley’s first rodeo.
Alexi: Yeehaw to that! 🤠 Stay warm in New Hampshire, please!
It’s true Haley has to be cautious about how and when she brings up her gender, and she deserves credit for how she has managed the balancing act. You might roll your eyes when Haley makes a joke about her heels — or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) — but we really should be talking about how wild it is that a woman is Trump’s biggest primary threat right now.
I mean, the GOP is not exactly for the girlies. Consider this research, which shows that registered Republicans are less likely to vote for female candidates than Democrats, and Republicans view women as more liberal candidates than men, even when they’re not.
Moreover, Republicans have been especially unpopular with women in the post-Roe era. The party’s voters don’t seem to mind that Trump has been in court this week defending himself against defamation claims from E. Jean Carroll, the writer whom a jury found him liable for sexually abusing in the mid-’90s. (Trump denies the claims.) Some on the right are even trying to make it harder for women to divorce their husbands!
I don’t believe a President Haley would be the best choice for women overall, but she’s certainly a bright spot for women on the right. She has set up “Women for Nikki” volunteer groups in every early primary and caucus state through Super Tuesday, and she was the sole female voice at all of the GOP primary debates, where abortion restrictions were a big part of the discussion. That means something.
Judging by the polls in New Hampshire, Haley likely won’t be the 2024 nominee. But her campaign has revealed a hopeful space for non-MAGA women in the GOP.
The question now is: Will the Republican Party welcome more troublemaker women like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) or those with broader appeal like Haley?
The subreddit r/Astrology is one of the many I follow, and just last week there was a hidden political nugget in the comments. The user Potato_wedge was seeking interpretations on an upcoming planetary alignment: “April looks really intense,” they wrote, noting that Mercury will be in retrograde. “Not only do we start the month with an eclipse but we have a comet at the same time. This is immediately followed by the Saturn and mars conjunction ... Overall it looks really volatile this spring into summer.”
One commenter said it “probably just means Nikki Haley gets the nomination over Trump then 😂.” Another user wrote back: “If that happens maybe we’ll also get Newsom or Whitmer on the Democratic side 🙏🏽.”
Here’s hoping astrologers are better at predicting politics than pollsters.
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