NEW POLL: Nikki Haley’s Whirlwind 2024 Campaign Rollout Increases Her Support By a Whopping 3 Percent

Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley got some news buzz from the launch of her 2024 presidential campaign earlier this month — plus the chatter about some controversial attacks on her — and her time in the spotlight has indeed led her to surge in the polls, doubling her support…from 3 percent to 6 percent.

Haley officially announced she was running on Feb. 15, with a campaign video released the day before. Her campaign launch was swiftly met with attacks from both the left and right, many of which focused on her Indian immigrant parents’ heritage, including Ann Coulter (told the South Carolina-born Haley to “go back to your country“), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) (called her “Bush in Heels“), and Daily Beast contributor Wajahat Ali (accused Haley of being a “Manchurian candidate” who was using her “brown skin to launder” White supremacy).

CNN This Morning anchor Don Lemon’s remarks on Feb. 16 about whether Haley was “not in her prime” set off the biggest media firestorm, leading to bipartisan condemnation of Lemon’s comments, a flurry of conservative media appearances for Haley, an apology from Lemon — and even some new merch from Haley’s campaign.

All together, Haley’s campaign announcement, the criticisms and attacks, and the controversy over Lemon’s comments led to a measurable surge in interest in Haley, as illustrated by GoogleTrends for her name.

GoogleTrends for Haley over the past year:

Screenshot via GoogleTrends.

…and over the past ten days:

Screenshot via GoogleTrends.

Unfortunately for Haley, that surge in online searches did not translate into a corresponding bump in the polls. Well, there was a bump. A small bump. A bumplet, if you will.

A Morning Consult poll showed that Haley’s support in the 2024 GOP presidential primary increased since her campaign launch from 3 percent to 6 percent. “That’s [former Vice President Mike Pence]-level — far short of [former President Donald Trump’s] 50% and [Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’] 30%,” tweeted Morning Consult senior reporter Eli Yokley along with the poll results.

According to the polling memo, the poll was conducted in the days after Haley’s campaign launch, “Feb. 17-19, 2023, among 3,217 potential Republican primary voters, with an unweighted margin of error of +/-2 percentage points.”

The memo describes Haley as getting a “modest boost in support and a surge in popularity,” noting that her favorability rating did see a more noticeable spike, going from 42 percent to 62 percent.

Still, favorability ratings only get you so far, and when poll respondents were asked which candidate would get their vote if the Republican primary were held today, Haley basically improved her numbers from former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who’s persona non grata among vast swaths of GOP voters for her criticism of Trump, to Pence, who likewise isn’t trusted by his own party’s voters for his refusal to support Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Screenshot via Morning Consult.

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