Nikki Haley is campaigning at a grueling pace as she fights to stay competitive in the Republican presidential contest, crisscrossing Iowa and New Hampshire to find a clear lane forward in a race dominated by Donald J. Trump and his mountain of legal problems.
So far, that path is elusive.
By many measures, Ms. Haley is running a healthy campaign poised to capitalize on rivals’ mistakes. She has built a robust fund-raising operation and her team has cash to spare: A super PAC backing her this week announced a $13 million advertising effort in Iowa and New Hampshire. And at events, voters often like what she has to say.
“She is not pounding the pulpit,” Eric Ray, 42, a Republican legal defense consultant in Iowa, said after watching her speak at a barbecue restaurant last weekend in Iowa City, adding that she had his vote. “She is not jumping up and down. She is not screaming the word ‘woke.’ She is making reasonable arguments for reasonable people.”
Yet as Ms. Haley tries to occupy a lonely realm between the moderate and far-right wings of her party, her attempts to gain national traction — talking openly about her positions on abortion, taking a hard stance against transgender girls playing in girls’ sports, attacking Vice President Kamala Harris — appear to be falling flat with the Republican base at large.
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