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Going into Super Tuesday, Nikki Haley’s support boosted by her appeal to independents, women
Donald Trump holds a commanding lead over Nikki Haley in Republicans’ preferences and in delegates going into the Super Tuesday contests. So what do we make of Nikki Haley winning a quarter and sometimes a third of the vote in these early primaries — and what should we make of it if she does so on Super Tuesday?
Most Republicans aren’t ready to cross party lines come November: almost all self-identified Republicans nationwide — 96% — say they’d vote for Trump in a matchup with President Joe Biden. Instead, Haley’s support in primary contests so far has often come from independents and some Democrats who’ve come into the GOP primaries, but she fares more poorly among self-identified Republicans.
However, it might mean there are some voters that the GOP could be leaving up for grabs if she’s not the nominee. Nikki Haley continues to hold an advantage over Donald Trump in a potential general election match-up with Joe Biden largely because she does better nationally with independents, moderates and women.
While Trump leads Biden in a national match-up by four points among likely voters nationally, this lead grows to nine points in a potential Biden-Haley contest.
Unlike Trump, Haley leads Mr. Biden among women, runs evenly among moderates (Trump loses moderates to Biden), and she does even better than Trump among independents: Haley leads Mr. Biden among independents by two to one.
And right now, 13% of voters who would choose Haley in a Biden-Haley match-up say they will vote for Mr. Biden in the likely event that his challenger is Donald Trump.
Who are these defectors?
- Few are Republicans. Six in 10 describe themselves as independents, and most are women. Most don’t hold college degrees.
- Most of them voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, but that doesn’t mean they like him: eight in 10 would be voting for Mr. Biden this time around in order to oppose Donald Trump.
- They are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with a potential Biden-Trump matchup: three in four call the match-up “depressing”, and nearly nine in 10 want other choices. Three- quarters would like to see a new, third political party to compete with the Democrats and Republicans.
- Most don’t think either Trump or Mr. Biden has the physical or mental health to be president.
- They aren’t particularly pleased with Mr. Biden’s tenure in the White House, but they are even more negative when looking back at Trump’s term in office. While six in 10 view Biden’s presidency as only “fair,” three in four say Trump’s presidency was “poor.”
- Most say the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border is a very serious problem (though not a crisis), and most think Trump, not Biden, would decrease the number of migrants trying to cross. But eight in 10 think the overturning of Roe v. Wade was bad for the country, and that the Republican Party has gone too far in restricting abortion. Most put some of the blame on Donald Trump.
- After the economy, their top concern is the state of democracy. Most think the state of democracy is threatened. Nearly all think Donald Trump tried to stay in office illegally, and most think democracy and the rule of law will only be safe if Mr. Biden wins. They overwhelmingly think that Trump would not be fit to be president if convicted of any of the crimes for which he is currently facing charges.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to have a commanding hold on the Republican Party. Seven in 10 Republican registered voters say it is very important for Republicans to be loyal to Donald Trump, and nine in 10 say that Donald Trump has a vision for where he wants to lead the country that they agree with.
This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,159 U.S. adult residents interviewed between February 28-March 1, 2024. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as past vote. The margin of error is ±2.8 points.
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Writer Delia Ephron, famous for rom-coms like “You’ve Got Mail,” knows how to dream up a fairy-tale storyline. But Ephron’s Broadway debut later this month comes directly from the pages of her life.
Ephron has written about intimate things before, but now it is her own life that is on the stage for everyone to see. She said it was not easy, “because I am basically introverted.”
But she sure makes it look easy. When “Sunday Morning” first interviewed Ephron two-and-a-half years ago, she’d just finished a best-selling memoir, “Left on Tenth.” Now she’s turned that book into a play, telling her remarkable story of beating the odds. She said, “It’s the story of a woman who loses her beloved husband of 38 years, and a man from her past drops into her life and she falls madly in love. And then shortly afterwards I got diagnosed with a terrible disease, a fatal leukemia. And I survived.”
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That’s right: seven years ago, because of her blood cancer, Delia Ephron was given four months to live. She’d already lost her sister, Nora, and her husband, Jerry, to cancer. But she somehow found love again, and got married in the hospital while undergoing chemo (a wedding that Dr. LaPook, a friend of Ephron’s, recorded).
Five-time Tony Award-winner Susan Stroman is directing the play. “It’s about second chances, and love, and life, and being brave enough to take those second chances, ’cause most people aren’t,” she said.
Stroman and Ephron share something in common they wish they didn’t. “I sadly lost my husband to AML, to leukemia,” Stroman said. “So, when I started to read the play, I knew everything about what was going on. I didn’t have to research anything, ’cause I had lived it, too.”
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She said it is “tricky” to direct the play’s turns from humor, to tragedy, and back again. But it’s a trick Stroman mastered – as “Sunday Morning” watched, tagging along every step of the way, from the first meet-and-greet, to an early rehearsal, to the stage of the James Earl Jones Theatre.
Emmy Award-winner Julianna Margulies plays Ephron. “They’re saying it’s a rom-com, and it is,” Margulies said. “It’s romantic, and it’s funny, and it’s wonderful, but bring tissues, in case you need them.”
LaPook asked stage legend Peter Gallagher (who plays Peter Rutter, Ephron’s newfound love), “The play is about two people falling in love who are not in their 20s or 30s; they’re older than that. What’s the significance of that?”
“Well, you know, you’re closer to death!” Gallagher replied. “Everything is precious. And I think that’s another thing that the audience is going to recognize and feel.”
Asked about the play’s life lessons for the audience, Ephron said, “We plan our lives out as a young person: ‘Oh, I wanna get married. I wanna have children. I wanna have a career.’ You know, you make all these things. But then you don’t think, ‘Oh, what’s gonna happen to me after I’m 50? What life do I want then?’ It’s a much more open book. And this is about seizing those years and really creating something.”
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Story produced by Amiel Weisfogel. Editor: Remington Korper.
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An Israeli airstrike hit a mosque in central Gaza and Palestinian officials said at least 19 people were killed early Sunday. Israeli planes also lit up the skyline across the southern suburbs of Beirut, striking what the military said were Hezbollah targets.
The strike in Gaza hit a mosque where displaced people were sheltering near the main hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah. Another four people were killed in a strike on a school sheltering displaced people near the town.
The Israeli military said both strikes targeted militants, without providing evidence.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue. Hospital records showed that the dead from the strike on the mosque were all men, while another man was wounded.
In Beirut, the strikes reportedly targeted a building near a road leading to Lebanon’s only international airport and another formerly used by the Hezbollah-run broadcaster Al-Manar.
Hussein Malla / AP
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. As the Israel-Hamas war reaches the one-year mark, nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in the latest conflict, most of them since Sept. 23, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.