ANALYSIS – When many think of former President Donald Trump, they recall his bluster and sometimes his insults. That's only natural since the mass media focuses almost exclusively on them. They also see him as a big ideas guy, not often as a policy guy.
But that may be changing.
As Politico notes: “While Trump's personal insults and off-the-wall comments attract most of the media attention, Trump's TV advertising over the last few days has been highly disciplined.”
In fact, an underreported feature of Trump's strength against former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, and former South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire GOP primary is that Trump has run a far more issues-based campaign than she has.
This is especially noteworthy in the type of political ads each side has been running.
The Politico's daily ‘Playbook' newsletter reports that with Trump, “It focuses on just two issues: immigration, hitting Haley from the right with specific references to unpopular (in a GOP primary) things she's said, and Social Security, attacking her from the left by claiming she will raise the retirement age and gut benefits.”
Meanwhile, Haley's ads “are about electability, general exhaustion with Trump and Biden, and generational change.”
Politico continues:
The experience of watching the evening news goes something like this: three positive Haley ads in which you learn she's a fresh face but almost nothing about her policy positions, followed by two Trump attack ads that are purely about her policy positions. In his prepared remarks at his rallies, he hammers these same two issues early, generally before he goes off on the more colorful tangents that get so much attention. The Trump onslaught has defined Haley in ways she never did herself.
But Trump is hitting Democrats on policy as well.
More generally, Trump has been focusing more on specifics in his speeches and remarks, especially on immigration and national defense. Issues like proposing a massive deportation of illegal aliens, re-establishing his effective border restrictions decimated by Joe Biden, and most recently offering to build an impenetrable missile defense ‘Iron Dome' over the entire United States.
All of this is excellent news to Republicans and increasingly to some Democrats as well.
But then there is the economy.
Trump has been hammering Joe Biden and the Democrats on the sad state of America's economy, deriding Biden's efforts to raise taxes, overregulate and inflation.
In addition to his age and declining mental and physical abilities, the faltering economy and inflation are the biggest issues that the 80-year-old Biden has to face. They are also some of Trump's biggest strengths.
A recent poll of New Hampshire Republicans shows that 60 percent of them feel that under Biden's policies they are barely treading water financially. And 27 percent said they are falling behind.
Meanwhile, the results are in, and Trump has won New Hampshire 55% to 43% against Haley.
“This race is far from over,” Haley told supporters at a post-election party in Concord, challenging Trump to debate her. “I'm a fighter. And I'm scrappy. And now we're the last one standing next to Donald Trump.”
Haley apparently drew much of her support from groups that were distinct minorities among Republican voters, according to VoteCast. About half of her supporters were college graduates, and about half identified as moderates.
If she remains in the race as she has stated, maybe she should focus more on issues like Trump.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
