In Thursday's CNN Town Hall in Iowa, presidential candidate, former U.N. Ambassador, and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley said of former President Donald Trump, "Chaos follows him wherever he goes." 

This was part of Haley's response to an Iowa voter who posed the question, "What is your strategy to overtake Donald Trump in the polls?" Haley's fuller response began with confidence but came off more hopeful than grounded in reality.

You know, I think that what you're seeing is that we've got momentum. We've got momentum in Iowa, we've got momentum in New Hampshire, you're going to continue to see us continue to be strong in South Carolina. 

If the polling is any indication, Haley is not very strong in the Palmetto State. This is the state she calls home, and she has few endorsements among the state legislature or the grassroots.

The former president this time has the endorsement of almost every major South Carolina Republican. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who ran against Trump, suggested he would destroy the Republican Party and openly questioned McMaster’s thinking over the 2016 endorsement, is now a close ally of the former president and is co-chairing Trump’s state campaign with McMaster.

South Carolina's lieutenant governor, state treasurer, attorney general and three of its six Republican U.S. House members all back Trump. The only congressman to endorse Haley is Rep. Ralph Norman, a longtime ally.

Haley went on to affirm her support of the former president during the time he was in office and his policies.

And really what it's been is, it's been about, let's talk about where this is: I personally think President Trump was the right president at the right time. I agree with a lot of his policies. But the reality is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. We all know that's true, chaos follows him. And we can't have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos, we won't survive it. And you don't defeat Democrat chaos with Republican chaos. Now is the time we need to have a new-generational leader. One that is going to leave the negativity and the baggage behind, and start focusing on the real issues that we have in the future. 

Once again, polling begs to differ. Haley is currently polling at 25 percent in South Carolina. Nationally, the Real Clear Politics average has Trump at 62 percent, with Haley trailing far behind at 11 percent. So, despite the chaos of indictments and attempts to remove Trump from the ballot, the Republican voter support appears to be focused on who is in the fight, not the fact that the fight is occurring.

But the poll numbers Haley chose to focus on were the head-to-head matchups with President Joe Biden.

But more than that: Americans don't want another nail biter of an election, and that's what we'll get. Look at any of the polls head-to-head against Biden. Ron doesn't beat Biden. Head-to-head with Biden. On a good day he might be up by two. The Wall Street Journal had him up by four. I'm in every one of those same polls. I defeat Biden by 17 points. Seventeen points. That makes it bigger than the presidency. 

The RCP average for Haley beating Joe Biden is three percent. That 17-point one Haley emphasized is a Wall Street Journal poll. The RCP average for Trump beating Biden is two percent. Haley mentioned "another nail-biter of an election," but the poll numbers give no indication that it would not be more of the same if she were the Republican nominee. But Haley sees her percentages as the makings of a national mandate. 

That's governorship, that's House, that's Senate, that's down to school boards. but more than that, you win by double digits, you're going into D.C. with a mandate. A mandate to stop all the wasteful spending and get inflation under control. A mandate to get our kids reading again and to take education back to the basics. A mandate to secure our border, no more excuses. A mandate to bring law and order back to our country. And a mandate of a strong America that we can be proud of. That's what we're doing, that's what I think we need to do. 

Haley later laid out how her accountant background would assist in balancing the budget and correcting inflation, while Trump oversaw an eight trillion dollar increase in the national debt. However, Congress has the power of the purse, so her accounting skills, just like Trump's business acumen, really don't come into play with ensuring economic prosperity. Much of Haley's agenda that she points to as different from Trump's is in areas where, pre-COVID lockdowns, Trump was riding high. The Republican House is pushing to return to Trump-era policies concerning the southern border, including the "Remain in Mexico" policy. The fight for school choice and a decrease in the NEA's power over education gained strong focus during Trump's four-year presidency. Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump had the backing of America's largest police union and appears on track to receive it again. So Haley's emphasis that her winning the presidency will ensure a mandate seems a bit of a reach. 

CNN host Erin Burnett returned to Haley's comment about Trump and chaos. Burnett asked,

You did say something there I wanted to follow up on as people face this decision. You said "rightly or wrongly chaos follows him." Is it rightly or wrongly? Is he the one who causes that chaos or is he just the unwitting victim?"

Haley responded without equivocation.

It's both. I mean, you see a lot of these cases they've brought against him are political in nature and there's no basis on it. Then you see some that he's going to have to answer for. But, look, I'm not telling you anything I didn't use to tell him. I used to tell him he's his own worst enemy. And so, I think at the end of the day we don't need anyone who's getting in their feelings. We don't need anyone that's getting personal about anything. 

It is interesting that Burnett did not follow up by asking her which cases are political in nature and which are the ones he needed to answer for. Way to split the baby without having to bring the receipts. Haley rounded out her comment.

We have a country to save. So that means, no more drama. No more taking things personally. 

While Trump's drama is way more prevalent and continuous, it often surrounds what he has said (for good or ill) and his doubling down on it. When Trump was active on the former Twitter (now X), he never apologized for tweets or deleted them. In the last few weeks, Haley has made missteps with statements on the Civil War and Iowa voters and continues to try to explain and refine those statements. If drama and "taking things personally" means that you take a solid stand on an issue and stand by your words, whether people agree with them or not, then this would be what distinguishes Haley from Trump.

It's just not what we need to do. We need to do this without emotion, we need to do this with a sane sense of how we're going to take America forward.

If the poll numbers are any reliable indicator, most voters appear to trust an emotional basket case who connects with them and their concerns to move America forward rather than a well-crafted, packaged candidate who struggles to find a way to make a solid connection, even to her own words. 

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