Nikki Haley is out with a new talking point.
At Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, the ex-U.N. ambassador called former President Donald Trump “the most disliked politician in all of America.”
The former South Carolina governor repeated the line Thursday in a mid-day interview on Fox News.
“He’s the most disliked politician in all of America. That’s reality. And that person can’t win a general election,” Haley said on “America’s Newsroom.”
Except on this question, the polling is not even close. That title belongs to Senate Minority Mitch McConnell.
At the time of writing, RealClearPolitics’ tracker of favorability ratings for both Republicans and Democrats shows the GOP Senate chief ranked as the most disliked politician. McConnell’s average net-favorable ratings are more than 35 points below zero. Trump doesn’t even come to this.
While none of the listed politicians enjoy positive favorability numbers, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi is the second-most disliked leader, with an average spread of -19 percent. Trump follows just below the former House speaker at -18.6 percent, with Vice President Kamala Harris at -15.9 percent, President Joe Biden at -14.9 percent, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at -12.4 percent, and incumbent House Speaker Kevin McCarthy at -5.4 percent.
In other words, if Haley wants to highlight the most unpopular politician in America, she’d go after the number one Republican in the upper chamber. That’s reality.
In terms of who the most hated politician might be among Democrats, there’s a good case to be made for Trump, who was booked at a Georgia jail last night and now faces 91 charges across four politicized investigations. Among Republicans, however, Trump remains the most popular politician in America, with a more than 41-point lead over the rest of the GOP primary field competing for next year’s presidential nomination.
The Republican frontrunner skipped the Wisconsin debate for a 45-minute interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson published on X, formerly known as Twitter. Trump trashed the GOP Senate leader as a “bad guy” who sought to undermine Republican voters by refusing to forcefully condemn Democrats’ impeachment efforts.
“Mitch McConnell, in my opinion, was trying to get senators to impeach me, especially for the second one,” Trump said.
McConnell has meanwhile responded to Democrats’ recent efforts at jailing their top political opponent with silence.
Last fall, the Kentucky lawmaker survived a challenge to his perch in leadership after capturing a Republican minority he could control over a conservative majority that he couldn’t. Over the course of the 2022 midterms, McConnell redirected scarce resources from competitive races in key states to a contest between two Republicans in Alaska for incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski.