Next Republican debate canceled after Nikki Haley says she’ll only participate if Donald Trump does
ABC News on Tuesday canceled the next Republican presidential debate after Nikki Haley said she wouldn’t participate unless former President Donald Trump takes part in it, leaving Gov. Ron DeSantis as the only candidate committed to Thursday’s event in New Hampshire.
“We’ve had five great debates in this campaign,” Haley said in a statement, released as she campaigned in New Hampshire. “Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them. He has nowhere left to hide. The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden. I look forward to it.”
Her statement was released a day after the all-important Iowa caucuses, in which Trump marked a wide margin of victory over both Haley and DeSantis. With the two locked in a heated competition for second place in Iowa, Haley tried to make her electoral argument more about Trump than DeSantis, repeatedly echoing her refrain that her candidacy marks a turnabout from the “chaos” that follows the GOP front-runner.
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The move also could be a result of the last debate which featured only Haley and DeSantis, in which Haley didn’t perform as well as expected, and DeSantis ultimately ended up beating her for second place in Iowa.
Haley had argued to caucusgoers that picking her gives Republicans a better chance to defeat Biden in November, pointing to survey data showing her with the largest lead among the GOP field in a theoretical general election matchup.
Haley’s decision also casts doubt on another New Hampshire debate scheduled for Sunday on CNN.
Haley went head-to-head with DeSantis in the most recent GOP debate last week in Iowa, a two-hour brawl that left at least some of her supporters feeling that the former South Carolina governor had lost some of the above-the-fray attitude of her campaign thus far. More than a dozen times she referenced a campaign-run website that several caucusgoers said had seemed repetitive and caught Haley in a bout of “name calling” that was off-putting.
With the GOP campaign now shifting to New Hampshire, ahead of that state’s primary next week, Haley has projected confidence that her commitment to the state and surveys showing her with support there will provide her campaign with the momentum needed to cut into Trump’s strength. After her caucus night party, Haley boarded an overnight flight to New Hampshire, where she planned an event with Gov. Chris Sununu later in the day.
Along the campaign trail in Iowa over the past week, reporters had asked Haley when she would commit to participating in Thursday’s debate, hosted by ABC and WMUR-TV at Saint Anselm College.
After his caucus win, Trump flew to New York, where he was expected in court for one of his multiple legal challenges, before heading to New Hampshire for a rally later Tuesday. He’s skipped all of the primary debates thus far.
After visiting the court, Trump will fly to New Hampshire to hold a rally Tuesday evening.
New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Chris Ager told AP on Tuesday that invitations had been extended to both Haley and Trump to join DeSantis on stage for the debate.