![\"President](\"https:\/\/static.politico.com\/64\/db\/142150484b449a220cae740c2cba\/210218-haley-trump-ap-773.jpg\")
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In an interview prior to Haley\u2019s criticisms of Trump, South Carolina GOP strategist Wesley Donehue predicted she would win her home state but noted that support of the former president is of utmost importance, according to a poll of Republican primary voters he took in the state in early February.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout 75 percent of Republican primary voters said supporting Donald Trump is a requirement for office. Again: a requirement. It\u2019s absolutely astonishing,\u201d Donehue said. \u201cSo she was seen in this state as being 100 percent with Donald Trump, but now over the last two weeks, we’re starting to hear a lot of rumblings. People still love Nikki Haley here, but she’s got to figure out a way to deal with this. I don\u2019t know how she does, though. Because Donald Trump doesn\u2019t seem to be someone with a short memory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haley\u2019s standing in her home state\u2019s primary looms large because the lanes the candidates will run in have both an ideological and geographical dimension. Since South Carolina is traditionally the third state to vote in a primary \u2014 and the first to go in the South \u2014 it exerts an extra gravitational pull.<\/p>\n
In New Hampshire, sandwiched between the Iowa and South Carolina contests, Republican strategist Jim Merrill said that Trump Lite could be \u201cpotentially the broadest lane … a hybrid that is able to point out Trump’s shortcomings while also working to build on his gains with working class Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump Zero<\/b><\/p>\n
Jeff Roe, who advised Cruz on his 2016 presidential bid, has polled Republican primary voters extensively in recent years on what type of candidate they would support. He\u2019s determined that the party has three distinctive lanes: a Full Trump lane, a Most Conservative lane (composed of fiscal and social conservatives) and a Most Electable lane that reflects a preference for whomever can beat the Democrats.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t pick a lane, you will get run over,\u201d Roe said. \u201cCandidates who try to hold a mirror up to the electorate and say, \u2018Look at me, I\u2019m just like you,\u2019 instead of saying, \u2018This is who I am, vote for me,\u2019 will lose. Voters want authenticity. They want leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n
That focus on electability is at the heart of the Trump Zero lane. It is essentially the vehicle of the anti-Trump wing, the province of those who have called out the president frequently for his rhetoric and post-election behavior, yet can single out some positive aspects of Trump\u2019s four-year reign.<\/p>\n
The problem is the lane might be so small that it\u2019s not much of a path at all, said David Kochel, a longtime GOP strategist from first-in-the-nation Iowa who counts Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan<\/b> and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse<\/b> among this group.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably not even a lane,\u201d Kochel said. \u201cIt\u2019s more like a gravelly shoulder on the side of the mountain that\u2019s about to crumble into the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n