After considerable media attention, including from Townhall and our sister site of PJ Media, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announced on Friday morning that she would indeed commit to CNN's Iowa debate on January 10 at Drake University. The debate takes place just days before the January 15 Republican caucus, the first nominating contest of the 2024 cycle. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his campaign had also ramped up the pressure on Haley to commit.
A Friday morning press release from the Haley campaign not only made clear that Haley has accepted the debate, complete with a statement from the candidate herself, but called upon frontrunner former and potentially future President Donald Trump to finally participate:
Presidential candidate Nikki Haley has accepted CNN’s invitation to debate in Des Moines, Iowa on January 10, five days before the Iowa caucuses. Haley called on Donald Trump to participate in the Iowa debate after having skipped all previous debates.
In the 2015-2016 campaign, Trump pulled a similar stunt. After participating in early campaign debates, then leading in the polls and thinking he had the race in the bag, Trump skipped the Iowa debate days before the 2016 caucuses only to take second place.
“The first four debates have been great for our campaign and for voters, and we look forward to the fifth in Iowa,” Haley said. “As the debate stage continues to shrink, it’s getting harder for Donald Trump to hide.”
Trump has avoided the debates so far this primary season, and it does not appear as if that will change for the Iowa debate. Given that Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie do not appear to even qualify for the 10 percent threshold, we could see a one-on-one debate between Hale and DeSantis. Thus, Haley failing to participate could truly have put the debate in jeopardy, as Chris Queen at PJ Media put it.
DeSantis responded over his X account, while also highlighting information about Haley's negative ad campaign.
If Donald Trump and Nikki Haley are going to continue to spend millions against me on television with false attacks, they should at least have the courage to meet on the debate stage.
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) December 15, 2023
Now that Nikki Haley has been shamed into coming to the CNN debate, it's time for Donald Trump… https://t.co/n1xUJpNIXv
As a press release from the DeSantis campaign not long after Haley's confirmation further added:
But that doesn’t square with the fact that her Super PAC yesterday placed another TV buy of almost $900,000 in negative ads against DeSantis.
To date, over $30 million has been spent in false negative ads against Ron DeSantis, almost exclusively by Donald Trump and Nikki Haley.
That’s because they know the truth: DeSantis is the only candidate who can beat both Trump and Biden. We will continue to push Trump and Haley to quit hiding behind false negative ads and show up on the debate stage, including the ABC News debate in New Hampshire that DeSantis has accepted.
Like Haley, DeSantis has also called on Trump to show up to the debates. Part of Trump's stated reasons for not doing so have included that he has such a strong lead against his fellow primary candidates. Trump currently enjoys 60.3 percent support overall, according to RealClearPolitics (RCP), with RCP having him with 50 percent support in Iowa.
As Spencer covered, Trump has made polling history in Iowa, though The Family Leader's Bob Vander Plaats, an evangelical leader in the state who has endorsed DeSantis, told The Washington Post that "I don’t believe them, and there’s a reason I don’t believe them--because it does not match up at all to what I’m hearing on the ground," speaking about the polls.
DeSantis had confirmed he would participate when the debate was announced last week. He's also called for a one-on-one debate against Trump and participated in "The Great Red vs. Blue State Debate" on Fox News with California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).