Haley boasted of her electability in a general election matchup with President Biden during Wednesday night's debate.

Questions about her ability to close her polling gap with former President Donald Trump were also top of mind following former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's exit from the race.

“We can’t go through another nail-biter of an election,” the ex-South Carolina governor said in her closing remarks to Iowa voters.

“And if you look at the polls right now —going against Joe Biden — in every one of those head-to-head polls, Ron doesn’t beat Joe Biden. Trump is head-to-head. On a good day he might be up by 2 points. I defeat Biden by 17 points.”

Haley was referring to a single Wall Street Journal survey conducted last month that showed her ahead of the president 51% to 34% — rather than an aggregate of polling numbers.

But, compared to the only other two GOP candidates who qualified for last night's debate (DeSantis and Trump), Haley does show the largest polling lead against Biden: the former gov has just over a three-percentage-point lead over the sitting president in the RealClearPolitics average.

However, she still sits nearly 50 percentage points behind Trump in the polling aggregator — even as Christie's departure is expected to net her at least a 1% bump in Iowa and a 6% increase in the New Hampshire primary, according to FiveThirtyEight.

There was no debate about who came out on top in Wednesday night’s head-to-head showdown between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

Of the five veteran politics watchers surveyed by The Post, four said Haley was the clear winner.

Republican consultant Bill O’Riley said Haley, 51, had “a great night” at Drake University in Des Moines, continuing her run of “consistently crisp” debate performances.

“She was sharp, informed, and compelling throughout the night,” he added. “Her use of ‘DeSantisLies.com’ was a smart rhetorical tactic by her campaign. Few will actually go to the website, but viewers heard that message over and over again. She drove it home.”

As for DeSantis, 45, O’Riley said the Sunshine State leader “hit his marks, but he lacks the confidence that Haley exudes. This debate won’t hurt DeSantis, but it did nothing to put momentum on his side.”

The consultant also took issue with DeSantis’ use of the phrase “pale pastels” to describe Haley’s ideas, a callback to Ronald Reagan’s 1976 Republican National Convention speech.

“It was downright bizarre,” O’Riley said. “It may have sounded great in prep sessions, but it came across as weird on Wednesday night. It will be interesting to see if DeSantis stays in the race past Iowa.”

READ MORE

Maybe practice doesn’t make perfect after all.

After five Republican presidential debates, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis still can’t smile authentically — but he beams naturally when going on the offensive, as he often did in Wednesday’s showdown with former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, body language expert Chris Ulrich told The Post.

Narrowed down to just two candidates – as front-runner former President Donald Trump again refused to participate – viewers of the last GOP debate before the Iowa caucus got a closer look at DeSantis and Haley’s strengths, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies.

“Because of the dynamic of now there’s just the two of them, the cameras more laser-focused on them,” Ulrich said. “We’re going to see their flaws.”

For DeSantis, that meant more shots of his cringeworthy smile, which Ulrich explained looks forced because his cheekbones and eyes don’t engage with his mouth. But it also meant he could focus his attacks, delivering “very strong” hits to Haley.

READ MORE

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu defended Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis for not harping too much on former President Donald Trump during their debate.

"They're not gonna spend all their time just trying to do the Trump question and all that sort of thing. I know that gets all kinds of headlines but they're there to earn the trust [of voters]," Sununu told CNN.

"Nikki took on Trump, I think pretty strong," she said. "She made it very clear where she stands on Donald Trump."

Sununu, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of Trump among Republican governors, surmised that the two had little to gain by bashing the 45th president.

"They're not earning more votes by placating into an anti-Trump crowd per se," he said. "Chris [Christie] tried that. God bless him ... It just didn't work out. It's not a winning strategy."

The Granite State governor, who has endorsed Haley argued that she's "on the verge of winning" his state. He also clarified that he would support the GOP nominee in 2024 even if that's Trump.

"That shouldn't surprise anybody that the Republican governor and most ... of America is going to end up going against Biden because they need to see a change in this country," he said.

Pundits said on social media that DeSantis and Haley both missed some opportunities to attack frontrunner and former President Donald Trump during the last debate before the caucuses.

"Both candidates are scrounging for the few avenues of legitimate attack against one another, instead of the vast, available opportunities for fair attacks on Trump and Biden," National Review senior writer Dan McLaughlin said.

"It's like watching two people on a life raft in the middle of the ocean fighting over the last drop of water."

National Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru noted that the tactic was self-defeating at points.

"A little weird that DeSantis praised Haley for doing a good job as UN ambassador after delivering that obviously-workshopped line about how you 'can't take the UN out of the ambassador,'" he posted on X.

CNN panelists were kinder to the Florida governor, saying he "rattled" Haley, who had "drastically overplayed her hand" by repeatedly name-checking a website put together by her campaign to call out DeSantis' lies about her candidacy.

"[S]o CNN panel says DeSantis did well and Haley was flustered. I don't know if that's how Republicans will view it," Commentary magazine editor John Podhoretz replied. "I thought he seemed smarmy and charmless and she seemed energetic and determined."

Post-debate, DeSantis broke his silence about a phone call he had with now-former GOP candidate Chris Christie, who was caught on a hot mic earlier Wednesday saying the Florida governor was "petrified" ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

"No, I've been to Fallujah. I've been to Ramadi. This is nothing," he told CNN's Anderson Cooper when asked about the communication.

"I did call him just because I felt he was being treated poorly," he added, saying Christie had "every right" to drop out of the race with a clear conscience.

DeSantis also said that Christie's anti-Trump campaign had run its course and pointed out that Haley "won't answer the question about whether she would accept the VP nod" from the former president.

During tonight's debate Ron DeSantis repeatedly invoked Ronald Reagan's 1976 description of the Republican Party platform as "a banner of bold, unmistakable colors with no pale pastel shades"

Some reporters, notably from NBC News and the Associated Press, interpreted DeSantis' use of the phrase "pale pastels" as an attack on Nikki Haley's wardrobe -- to the chagrin of the campaign.

"So, the mainstream media really going with this... Either blatant malpractice or just plain idiocy. Does @AP seriously not know the line about leading with bold colors vs. pale pastels is from Ronald Reagan's 1976 GOP convention speech??" DeSantis national spokeswoman Carly Atchison posted on X.

Reagan used the phrase to urge the party to present new ideas while the Democrats pitched "a rerunning of a late, late show of the thing that we have been hearing from them for the last 40 years."

"We need to run under the banner of bold colors that are putting the American people first," DeSantis said in his closing statement. "We can't run under a banner of pale pastels of the warmed over corporatism, the likes of which is practiced by Nikki Haley."

DeSantis celebrated Iowa as "the best of America" in his closing remarks, as he looks ahead next week to the critical caucus test against Haley and former President Donald Trump.

"It's been great to visit all 99 counties here in Iowa and have been able to meet so many friends," he told the crowd in Des Moines.

He then quickly pivoted to attacking Haley for saying the first-in-the-nation contest needed to be "corrected" by later states like New Hampshire.

"Donald Trump is running for his issues; Nikki Haley's running for her donor's issues — I'm running for your issues," DeSantis closed, repeating his opening statement. "I'm the only one running that's delivered on 100% of my promises."

"We have it within our power to fix this country and turn it around. I am asking for your support. ... I'll be a president that you can be proud of and I promise I will get the job done."

Nikki Haley went after Donald Trump in her closing statement, warning against making him the Republican nominee again.

"We can't go through four more years of chaos. And if it's Donald Trump, there will be four more years of chaos," Haley pleaded.

"We can't be a country in disarray in a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos," she reiterated. "And we can't go through another nail-biter of an election."

"I defeat Biden by 17 points [in head-to-head polls]," Haley added. "That's bigger than [winning] the presidency. That's the House, that's the Senate, that's governorships. That's down to school board. That's a mandate."

Nikki Haley derided the suggestion that former presidents enjoy total immunity from prosecution for offenses they were not impeached and removed from office over — a key argument Donald Trump’s legal team is making to toss out two of his indictments.

“That’s ridiculous. That’s absolutely ridiculous. I mean, we need to use some common sense here. You can’t go and kill a political rival and then claim immunity [as] a president,” she said.

“I think we have to start doing things that are right.”

Trump’s legal team argued in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday that his attempts to stay in power after the 2020 election were part of his official duties.

READ MORE

CNN anchor Jake Tapper threw a curveball with minutes to go in the debate, asking each candidate to say what they "liked" about the other.

Both were only able to offer faint praise.

"At the United Nations, I did think that she spoke out strongly on some key issues," DeSantis said. "I also appreciate the state of South Carolina. My wife is a College of Charleston graduate. Her parents lived there for many, many years. ... There's a lot of great people there."

Haley's response was more straightforward and terse.

"I think he's been a good governor," she said bluntly, triggering an awkward laugh from Tapper.

Ron DeSantis took Donald Trump to task for his lack of action while riots ravaged the country in the spring of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

The CNN moderators noted that Trump has talked about deploying US troops to Democrat-run cities to rein in violence and crime on the streets.

"[It's] a little bit rich because he was president during the worst rioting in the modern history of this country — the [Black Lives Matter] riots in the summer of 2020," DeSantis said.

"When I saw that happen in Minneapolis ... I called up the National Guard," he said. "He sat in the White House and tweeted 'Law and Order' but he did nothing to ensure law and order. As your president, I will never let our cities burn."