Nikki Haley New Wave Republican

    Yesterday, Meg Kinnard came to introduce herself and share with us her experience within the journalism field. I found her completely inspiring, and her story resonated deeply with me. Specifically her akiness to objectivity. She said, "If you get to the end of one of my stories and feel you know my side, I've done a bad job". She also spoke of her background and origins in politics, which began at a young age supporting her uncle on his campaign trail. Her grandfather was a blue dog conservative representative of Tenessee, Ed Jones. I later had the pleasure of meeting Jay Parmley, the executive director at the SCDP(South Carolina Democratic Party). It alludes to how the topic of the conversation came about, but we got to talking about blue-dog Democrats. A term I never really had a name for before this trip. It essentially refers to Democrats with conservative tendencies. They've also been described as a more moderate Democrat or a fiscally responsible Democrat. This less liberal Democrat created a riff in the Democratic party, which over time became more unified again in tandem with the results of the 2016 presidential election. Now, the Republican party is experiencing this riff, which is made more than apparent by Nikki Haley's campaign. The MAGA campaign thrives off of a new brand of Republican, a populist Republican. An extremist anarchist faction on the bell curve political theory(see image attached). But can Haley's campaign appeal to the excluded Republicans? With South Carolina being an open primary, political scientists can see her appeal to Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike. This pull focused on flipping partisan voters is reminiscent of Operation Chaos from the 2008 presidential race. There would seem to be a cyclical shift of partisan issues that resignate with either party but also it seems to follow in the wake of appealing to a new base of voters. With Haley's coalition consisting of anti-trump Republicans, independents, and 2020 Biden voters, we have seen a moderate stance on typical Republican platform issues like abortion. While her stance is pro-life, she advocates for the removal of social policy from legislation which I believe especially strikes a chord with women voters in tandem with Nikki Haley's gender expression.