A new dynamic is unfolding in the presidential primaries with both Donald Trump's and Nikki Haley's campaigns shifting to one-on-one combat as the race charges to the next phase with an expected competitive contest in New Hampshire.
It could get ugly fast.
Team Trump is readying to unleash a level of vitriol against Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, that she hasn’t yet seen, according to several of the former president's advisers and allies.
“Nikki should get out while people still talk about her for 2028, or she’ll end up like all the 2016s that nobody thinks of as future presidents anymore,” a Trump campaign adviser said. “A protracted ground war will cost us our money, but it will cost Nikki her reputation and image.”
But Haley, too, is moving more aggressively against Trump, already characterizing the race as a choice between an aged politician drowning in old grievances and a new face who promises generational change and stability. Though she came in third in Iowa on Monday, she declared the contest a two-person race between herself and Trump.
"[T]he field of candidates is effectively down to two, with only Trump and Nikki Haley having substantial support in both New Hampshire and South Carolina," Betsy Ankney, Haley's campaign manager, said in a memo responding to the Iowa results.
A person with knowledge of the Haley campaign’s thinking said: “She is very much defending her record and comparing it to one of drama and chaos and vindictiveness and dysfunction. Now that it is a two-person race, I think that contrast becomes more clear.”
Haley is expected to mount a counteroffensive against Trump while at the same time relaying her policy similarities with him, noting that he respected her as his appointee and that she once welcomed his ability to blow up business as usual.
New Hampshire will mark a shift for Haley. In Iowa, she trained most of her firepower on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, because the two were in contention for second place — well behind Trump. Her sole attention now is on Trump, the person close to the campaign said, with Haley viewing the race as a two-person contest because of her recent surge in the state. Polls have Haley regularly ranking second to Trump in New Hampshire, with one showing her trailing by just 7 points.
Indeed, Haley’s post-caucus remarks Monday night laid into Trump, whom she compared repeatedly to President Joe Biden, saying the two are "about" 80 years old and have added trillions of dollars to the national debt.
"Trump and Biden both lack a vision for our country's future, because both are consumed by the past, by investigations, by vendetta, by grievances," she said. "American deserves better."
For his part Monday, Trump called his competitors "very smart people, very capable people."
The Trump world onslaught, meanwhile, is expected on social media, both through ads and directly from Trump, who is already painting Haley as liberal and anti-MAGA. (Haley's campaign clapped back Monday, noting that the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. sent New Hampshire mailers that depicted her as supportive of the MAGA agenda.) The super PAC has also exclusively trained its focus on Haley in recent weeks, charging in one ad that she was "too weak — too liberal — to fix the border."
A Trump bundler advised observers to anticipate that Trump will go more directly at Haley and to “expect him and others to ensure the voters of New Hampshire and South Carolina understand the chasm that divides her from the core of our party.”
All the tough talk comes after Trump had already intensified his offensive against Haley, as polls showed her gaining on him in New Hampshire. He called Haley a “globalist RINO” on Truth Social on Monday (that is, a “Republican in name only”). At an Iowa event this month, he hinted about old, unsubstantiated allegations that Haley had an affair. He has spread false birther theories about Haley, whose parents immigrated from India, and mocked her as “Birdbrain.”
“Nikki Haley is a fictional character who isn’t ready for the bright lights or the big stage,” Jason Miller, a Trump campaign senior adviser, told NBC News. “As folks learn of Haley’s Romneyesque, open border and tax-raising globalist RINO ways, the less likely they are to be supportive.”
Haley has received some air cover. In New Hampshire, the pro-Haley Stand for America PAC has aired TV spots directly rebutting Trump, including one that says he’s targeting Haley because she’s a demonstrated threat. Another, titled “Tantrum,” more aggressively targets Trump, saying his entire campaign is “based on revenge.”
How Haley navigates Trump attacks — both incoming and outgoing — in the next phase of the campaign could prove vital to her political survival.
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In the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, Haley restrained herself from going at Trump too hard. In stump speeches, she was careful to say that she supported many of Trump’s policies and that he was “the right president at the right time.” She has also said she would pardon him if he’s convicted on any of his looming criminal charges. But she routinely adds that “chaos follows him” and that the country is ready for someone who can "fix things," not just break them.
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But as Iowa drew to a close, Haley signaled she was raring for a Trump fight. On Monday morning, her campaign released an ad in New Hampshire that lumped Trump and Biden together as unlikable and unable to look to the future.
“The two most unpopular politicians in America? Trump and Biden,” the narrator says. “Both are consumed by chaos, negativity and grievances of the past.”
In Iowa, a digital spot the morning of the caucuses trolled Trump and his claim that he would win by 60 points.
But when it comes to hitting Trump, Haley faces the same trick box every opponent facing Trump does: earn the stamp of being anti-Trump but risk alienating a segment of the primary voters needed to win the nomination.
“Like it or not, Republican voters do not want to hear how bad Donald Trump is. They’ve heard it for eight years from Democrats and the media,” New Hampshire Republican strategist Matthew Bartlett said. “There’s nothing you can tell a Trump voter that would surprise them.”
Bartlett said Haley would be better off defending her record, working to appeal to non-college-educated voters and leaning on her message of electability, a common theme in her stump speeches. In public events, Haley holds up a Wall Street Journal poll that found she would beat Biden in a general election by 17 points, characterizing such a win as a mandate that could lift up Republicans down the ballot.
But an inability to demonstrate she could take on Trump could also come at its own peril, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has warned. Christie tore into Haley last week at an event in New Hampshire for failing to repudiate Trump, holding up her promise to pardon him.
“This is the kind of pandering that you should not be willing to put up with,” Christie said before he dropped out of the race. “She’s just out there saying that because she thinks that will make some voters who liked Trump in some way more comfortable with her. That’s not what we’re looking for. That’s not what we should stand up for.”
If Trump’s assault, indeed, grows especially nasty, Haley has demonstrated she can step up, allies say, pointing to a contentious 2010 primary for governor of South Carolina.
“I’ve always thought that Nikki is at her best when she’s counterpunching, when she’s responding to attacks, when she’s defending her position,” said South Carolina state Sen. Tom Davis, a Republican who has known Haley for 20 years.
In the past, personal attacks on Haley have backfired, strategists said.
“When people attack you and your family with politically motivated lies and you tackle them forthrightly, authentically, and you don’t hide from questions — all parts of how Nikki has handled attacks — people can relate to it,” said Rob Godfrey, a communications strategist who worked on a rival campaign during South Carolina’s 2010 primary for governor and for Haley after she won the nomination.
“They appreciate the transparency and seeing you call it out but also the vulnerability you show in protecting those you love, and it becomes something that endears you to voters," he added. "They feel like they can trust you even more."
