New Hampshire showdown: Why Trump is connecting with voters and Haley and DeSantis have not

I can probably list about 30 reasons why Ron DeSantis was under fire before today's New Hampshire primary.

Many members of the media are happy to kick him when he's down (such as his worst campaign in history), amplified in part by his own mishandling of the media. , his relentless negative coverage.

Why did DeSantis cancel Sunday's show (including mine) drop out of the race?

But it ends up being more existential.

An exchange on my show about Donald Trump sticks out in my mind.

I was talking about both MSNBC and CNN removing President Trump's Iowa victory speech, but the former president said this was so unfair that NBC and CNN (which is not federally certified) He declared that the broadcast should be cancelled.

Now, I agree with Mr. Trump on that, but so does CNN's new director, Mark Thompson, who, according to the New York Times, says the station will give more speeches. He told the staff that he should have told them. However, they do not agree on a remedy. Networks shouldn't be kicked off the air just because the president doesn't like their reporting.

When I asked liberal Media Buzz guest Leslie Marshall about Trump's threat, she said Trump supporters “want to be entertained by Trump by using nicknames for everyone,” or Nikki Haley's Indian name. He said that when ridiculing people, it is a “racial shade.'' ”

Bret Baier: “Trump and Haley's words are likely to get even uglier''

Love him or hate him, Trump is an entertainer. He's got New York's timing. He may ramble, but he puts on a show. What journalists hear as authoritarian language, a one-day dictator, his supporters see as rubbish.

When Trump was indicted four times, the media called him a threat to democracy, which boosted him in the polls.

For the record, Marshall later said, “Ron DeSantis clearly doesn't have the likability factor.”

You can now call Florida's governor a hard worker, a policy nut, and a committed conservative with a strong track record in the state. But he's a serious, down-to-earth guy who's not particularly funny and doesn't like to talk about himself, such as his time in the army in Iraq.

Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks with supporters at Lovell Winery in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, on January 17, 2024. ((Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images))

DeSantis and Haley are very disciplined and scripted activists, but they both don't have a great sense of humor. Both are “not interesting”.

Now, the counterargument here is that government is a serious business, this is not a vaudeville show, and policies affect all Americans. But first we have to win the election. Making connections with voters has always been important, especially in the television era.

Undeclared NH voters can participate in Republican or Democratic primaries: Shannon Bream

Meanwhile, Haley trails Trump by double digits in most polls, and the media is now focused on whether the 77-year-old former president is mentally disturbed. It's an obvious attempt to level the scales with President Biden, who has long been known for his gaffes and stuttering, but who, at 81, now clearly looks more frail and at times confused than he did three years ago. It looks like

So now there's a concerted effort, especially on some programs on MSNBC, to portray President Trump as defeated, too.

After President Trump's victory in Iowa, multiple news outlets shared articles discussing his significant white and evangelical supporters. (Trump Photo Credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP) (Photo Credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images. Trump Supporting Evangelical Photo: Scott McIntyre/For The Washington Post via Getty Images. Trump Praying Photo: Pedro Portal/ Miami Herald/ Tribune News Service (via Getty Images). Joy Reid photo by Virginia Sherwood/MSNBC via Getty Images)

Past gaffes — including saying Obama when he was referring to Biden and saying Biden could start World War II — didn't get much attention.

But on January 6, after President Trump mentioned Nikki Haley's name three times and said she was in charge of security, she declined his offer to provide 10,000 troops. When he said that, he was clearly talking about Nancy Pelosi. (Incidentally, she disputes that story.)

And this patently false statement made Haley question her own “mental sanity” more sharply than her standard riff about not wanting two 80-year-olds to run for president. gave me a chance to see it.

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This is the kind of aggressive attack Haley should have made long before the final weekend before the vote. She said yesterday that the entire “media elite” was urging her to withdraw.

Just as the primaries are finally starting to get interesting, Haley, the last woman standing, still trails Trump by double digits in most polls, and it feels like it's too late.