5 things to watch for in CNN’s town halls with DeSantis and Haley

By Gregory Krieg and Eric Bradner, CNN

(CNN) — The two Republicans most likely to emerge as the party’s alternative to former President Donald Trump in 2024 will make their cases Wednesday night to voters in Iowa, with just a week and a half to go until Hawkeye Republicans head to their caucus sites for the first contest of the GOP presidential primary season.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley have emerged from a field that once counted nearly 20 candidates as unofficial semi-finalists in the race to take on Trump, who continues to enjoy a healthy lead over both in state and national polling.

In back-to-back CNN town hall events at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, Haley and DeSantis will face questions from likely GOP caucus-goers and anchors Kaitlan Collins and Erin Burnett about their visions for the future – and why they, more than Trump or anyone else, are best-positioned to defeat President Joe Biden in the fall.

Trump will not be in attendance at Grand View, but the specter of his winning a third consecutive GOP presidential nomination will animate the proceedings with DeSantis and Haley both ratcheting up their attacks on Trump in recent weeks – even as they steer clear of the kind of firm denunciation that could cost them points with undecided conservatives.

DeSantis is up first at 9 p.m. ET with Collins, and Haley is scheduled to follow at 10 p.m. ET with Burnett.

Here are five things to watch during their conversations with Iowa voters:

Will DeSantis go directly at Trump?

After flying into 2023 as the early favorite to challenge Trump, DeSantis enters 2024 stumbling, hoping to scratch out a respectable performance in Iowa to rejuvenate his messy, cash-bleeding campaign.

The Florida governor has more aggressively gone after Trump in recent appearances, criticizing the former president for sitting out the GOP debates and making the argument that he’s better positioned to win over a small but potentially decisive group of swing voters in battleground states.

But that tactical tweak has yet to truly resonate with many voters.

“Why haven’t you gone directly after him?” a DeSantis-backing voter in Iowa asked the candidate at an event on Wednesday. “In my viewpoint, you’re going pretty soft on him.”

DeSantis countered by arguing that he has “articulated all the differences time and time again on the campaign trail,” before attacking the media, suggesting reporters “want Republican candidates to just kind of like smear (Trump) personally and kind of do that. That’s just not how I roll.”

Could a more drastic change be coming? Stranger things have happened – but not many.

Will Haley take on Trump?

As Haley has risen in GOP polls, she’s faced increasingly sharp criticism from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — another presidential candidate whose hopes depend on a strong finish in New Hampshire, the next state up on the Republican primary calendar.

Christie has repeatedly insinuated that the former United Nations ambassador isn’t more forcefully taking on Trump because she wants to keep open options such as joining a Trump ticket as his running mate, or running for president again in 2028.

“If there was someone else, other than me, who had been willing to take on Donald Trump and tell the truth about him, I might consider getting out of the race. But there isn’t,” Christie said Wednesday on MSNBC.

The criticism from Christie is a window into the crosscurrents Haley faces. She’s rapidly gained ground among Republican voters eager to move on from the former president — and could continue to pick up moderate and independent voters who can participate in some primaries, including New Hampshire if they’ve switched their party affiliation and South Carolina, Haley’s home state.

But to actually defeat Trump, she’ll have to erode his support among a larger contingent of the GOP that remains loyal to the former president. Finding ways to do that, without alienating those voters, has eluded Trump’s intra-party rivals for three consecutive presidential election cycles.

Expectations management

As Haley and DeSantis jockey to become the last Trump alternative standing, both are seeking to manage expectations of their performances in the Iowa caucuses — justifying ahead of time why they should be seen as strong contenders in a field where Trump remains the dominant frontrunner.

DeSantis said Tuesday on Fox News that how he finishes in Iowa is not a deciding factor for his campaign’s fate.

“This is a race to get the majority of the delegates,” DeSantis said. “The polling is never predicted how the results come out, because it’s a caucus and it’s just a different beast. We are doing what it takes to win.”

Haley, while campaigning in Kingston, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, predicted “surprises” in the first-in-the-nation nominating contests.

“I know the momentum in Iowa and the momentum in New Hampshire — they want something different,” Haley told voters.

Allies of the candidates are also seeking to set favorable expectations for their candidates.

The pro-Haley super PAC SFA Fund, Inc., launched a video highlighting instances of DeSantis claiming he would win the Iowa caucuses.

Mark Harris, chief strategist of the super PAC, told reporters Wednesday that DeSantis must win Iowa — whereas Haley just needs to do well enough in Iowa “to keep momentum going” as the race shifts to New Hampshire, where polls show her in a strong second place behind Trump.

“There’s no doubt now that once we get on the other side of Iowa, it really is a two-way race between Nikki and President Trump,” Harris said.

Civil War comments

Haley faced what might be the worst moment of her 2024 campaign last week when she was asked in New Hampshire about the causes of the Civil War, and delivered an answer about “how government was going to run” — without mentioning slavery.

She sought to walk that back quickly, even as allies such as New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu conceded her remarks were a mistake.

“Everyone has moved on,” except the media, Haley said Wednesday on Fox News.

Still, Haley faced criticism from across the political spectrum — including Trump allies and President Joe Biden — and the moment planted doubts about her political acumen. The moment isn’t likely to fade quickly, and could continue to haunt Haley in televised town halls and upcoming debates.

Asked during the Fox News interview about the backlash since her gaffe, Haley again said she assumed that slavery being the cause of the Civil War was a “given” and said she has recognized it should have been the first thing she said in her response.

“When you grow up in the south, you grow up and slavery is a constant comment and constant point of discussion. You learn it in school, and you talk about it. The south is actually very comfortable with our history. What I should have said immediately was that the Civil War was about slavery, but I assumed it was a given and said it was also about the role of government and about the rights of people economically, socially, and otherwise,” the former South Carolina governor said.

Abortion specifics

Over the course of their four national debates, the Republican primary candidates have largely skirted what could be the most influential issue in the coming general election: abortion rights.

In the year-and-a-half since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, voters across the ideological spectrum have mostly broken against efforts to tighten abortion restrictions and routinely cast ballots for efforts to preserve the right.

Neither Haley nor DeSantis has come down on the popular side of the issue. DeSantis signed a six-week ban in Florida last spring and has said he would back a federal law drawing the line at 15 weeks. But he hasn’t spoken much about either. (In another CNN town hall last month, he touted the six-week ban before pivoting to attack Trump.)

Haley has been even harder to pin down as she touts her “unapologetically pro-life” politics while also saying she wants to find a national consensus on the issue, which rates among the most intractable in American life.

With less than two weeks until voting begins, both will likely be pressed to give more information about their visions and, perhaps, give viewers a hint as to how they would sell those plans to a general election crowd.

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