Nikki Haley’s New Attack on Trump In New Hampshire ‘Could Work,’ Says Local Expert

CNN anchor Kate Bolduan spoke with Prof. Dante J. Scala, who teaches politics at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, about the state of the GOP primary on Tuesday.

Bolduan began by asking Scala for his takeaways from yesterday’s GOP Iowa caucus.

“What they’re taking out of Iowa is this growing feeling that Donald Trump is inevitably going to be the nominee of the Republican Party and what Nikki Haley wanted to get out of last night in Iowa was to give Hampshire voters a reason to believe, a reason to reset what they were thinking about how things were going to turn out. Things didn’t quite work out that well,” Scala noted.

Bolduan followed up by noting that New Hampshire historically likes to break from Iowa in the GOP primary and asked about Nikki Haley’s chances in the state’s primary next week.

“I think Nikki Haley this week is trying to reach out to two groups of voters. She’s trying to get independents, even those who lean a little bit Democratic, to join in, jump in the pool and vote, maybe vote against Donald Trump. And at the same time, talk to New Hampshire Republicans and say, hey, I’m perfectly acceptable as the nominee. Can you deliver both messages at the same time to two very distinct groups of voters? That’s the challenge ahead of her over the next seven days,” Scala replied.

“Let me then play a little bit of the new ad that Nikki Haley’s campaign put out this morning. It mirrors her final message as she was leaving Iowa last night that she wants to she wants to. Her candidacy is to help, in her words stop another Trump-Biden nightmare,” said Bolduan before playing Haley’s latest campaign ad attempting to tie Trump and Biden together.

“What is she leaning into here when it relates to Iowa? Do you think it’s going to be effective?” Bolduan then asked.

“I think it could work. She’s leaning this, she’s been, slowly but surely reaching this point where she makes a more explicit message against Donald Trump. And here she’s kind of trying to be, tread the middle, and that’s been so much about her campaign, is trying not to offend. Bring people together, saying Biden and Trump are two of a kind. Is that a way for her to become a crossover candidate who can build a coalition here?” Scala replied.

“Yeah. I mean, is this as direct as she’s going to get in taking on Donald Trump? We will see because she’s definitely not going nearly as hard as we saw from, let’s say, Chris Christie when he was still running, when he was still running, that’s for sure,” Bolduan noted.

“Absolutely. And so with Chris Christie, the lesson there was you can go too far. Nikki Haley’s question is, has she gone far enough to persuade voters that she could be the alternative?” replied Scala.

Bolduan then ended the interview and went to anchor John Berman in the studio who noted, “I think I first talked to Dante Scala in 1996. He’s just awesome at New Hampshire. Great to hear from him.”

“Both of you have never been smarter or looked younger,” joked Bolduan in reply.

Watch the full clip above via CNN.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com