Three candidates; three definitions of 'is'

Right now former Governor Nikki Haley is considered Donald Trump’s biggest threat to winning his third consecutive Republican presidential nomination.

She’s remaining competitive, barely but bravely, in Iowa, the site of the first caucuses of next year’s nomination fight. She is surging in New Hampshire, the site of the first primary, and perhaps is even within striking distance of former President Donald Trump. She’s a phenom, a minority woman whose ethnic background and gender have not raised substantial notice until recent days, and then only glancingly. Hillary Rodham Clinton did not have that advantage eight years ago. Barack Obama did not have that advantage 16 years ago. Nor, on the question of religion, did Mitt Romney a dozen years ago nor John F. Kennedy 64 years ago.

In short, America is “ready” — that is the cloying word that the earlier four pioneers faced — for an Indian-American female to sit where 44 white men have sat, there in the president’s chair. The remaining question now is whether the Republican Party is ready to move on from Mr. Trump.

Present and future

So if America is ready, and Ms. Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations, is willing and able — and her experience is at the heart of her campaign — why does so much depend on what the definition of “is” is?

There are three reasons to consider the definition of “is” in this complex context.

The first is that the word is in the present tense. She’s gained 18 percentage points on Mr. Trump since September in New Hampshire, according to the recent CBS News/YouGov poll. There’s more: Chris Sununu, the governor of the Granite State, has endorsed her, and the fact that Independents (and in some cases Democrats) can vote in the GOP primary makes her an attractive magnet for those who want Mr. Trump consigned to the dustbin of history.

But the word “is” is operative here because Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida leads her in Iowa. He can’t afford to finish anything short of second place to assure that his White House dreams are not finished. If the ESPN sportscaster Chris Berman were to characterize Mr. DeSantis’s status in Iowa he would say he was “back, back, back, way back” behind Mr. Trump — 36 points to be precise.

But the word “is” is in the present tense. The election is in the future tense.

So…if Mr. DeSantis were to do better than the paltry 22 percentage points he now registers in Iowa, might he emerge on the cusp of New Hampshire as the best alternative? In three weeks or so we will know the answer, and the word “is” might migrate to him.

A delicate dance

The second “is” is even more complicated. It’s whether Mr. Trump is the best candidate to defeat Joe Biden at a time when it now seems as if the best candidate to beat Mr. Biden is Joe Biden himself. Again, the word is in the present tense, and there is much time in the future for that to erode.

Here is one way it might. This is, of course, a little like playing Chinese checkers in three dimensions, but give this mind-bender a try:

(1) If Mr. Trump is considered the best bet to defeat the president — and half of New Hampshire primary voters believe he is right now; and

(2) If Mr. Biden is himself endangered for re-election, and all polls suggest he is right now; then

(3) Does the decline in Mr. Biden’s re-electability ratings itself undercut what many Republicans believe is the former president’s most important electoral asset; and thus

(4) Does that make it more plausible that another Republican — less disorganized, less undisciplined, less crude and coarse, less alienating — might seem attractive, especially since

(5) Mr. Trump’s adversaries in the primaries surely are going to point out that he can serve only for four additional years while they can serve for eight?

These five steps of political dance — jump, turn, gesture, transference of weight and stepping — are, to be sure, unlikely to be performed with ease, especially in this climate. The CBS/YouGov New Hampshire poll shows that 51% believe Mr. Trump can beat Mr. Biden, followed by Ms. Haley at 32%.

Another factor demands our attention at this moment. More than half the public believes Mr. Biden’s policies have hurt them, according to the latest Wall Street Journal Poll. At the same time, more than half believe Mr. Trump’s policies helped them. That changes the dynamic in a way that has no precedent, except perhaps in 1892, when former President Grover Cleveland returned to the White House by defeating sitting President Benjamin Harrison: The challenger is running with the advantage incumbents often get.

The courtesy extended to all former occupants of the presidency except for Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower applies to Mr. Trump. He gets to campaign as President Trump. (General Grant and General Eisenhower had their military titles restored after their presidencies ended.)

Expectations matter

All this leads us to the third “is.” It depends on what the expectation for Mr. Trump is.

It surely cannot be that what is projected today will stay the same. Because a mere 15-point New Hampshire victory by a former president against a national-politics rookie isn’t a particularly impressive performance, especially since the prevailing narrative is that Mr. Trump is, Berman-style, way, way, ahead of any pretender to his throne atop the GOP.

Some perspective: Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine went into New Hampshire with a 29-point lead in national polls over Senator George McGovern of South Dakota in 1972. Mr. Trump holds a 51 percentage point lead in national polls.

Mr. Muskie defeated Mr. McGovern by nine percentage points in 1972 -– finishing with 46% of the vote in New Hampshire, far less than the 60% that was the expectation for a candidate from a neighboring state. The message coming out of Manchester, N.H., that night — and I was there — was a big blow to Mr. Muskie, who didn’t reach the finish line at the Miami Beach convention.

The expectations for Mr. Trump are even higher — and his New Hampshire numbers are about even with Mr. Muskie’s final Granite State total. Actually, they are two points below.

Conclusion: We can’t reach any conclusion at this point. The definition of “is” is constantly changing.

David Shribman, a Pulitzer Prize winner in journalism, is the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.