This past weekend, former South Carolina Governor, and Donald Trump’s only remaining serious opponent in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, Nikki Haley, appeared on the sketch comedy variety show, Saturday Night Live (SNL). Caroline Leicht writes that given SNL’s influence as a source of political information, Haley’s appearance may give her the upper hand in controlling the campaign narrative and could also help her reach Democrats who are considering strategic primary voting. 

• This article is part of ‘The 2024 Elections’ series curated by Peter Finn (Kingston University). Ahead of the 2024 election, this series is exploring US elections at the state and national level. If you are interested in contributing to the series, contact Peter Finn (p.finn@kingston.ac.uk).

“Live from New York, it’s Nikki Haley vs. Donald Trump.” That was how Nikki Haley’s campaign team circulated a link to Haley’s appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) to reporters over the weekend. While Haley did appear on the show, it was not the real Trump but SNL’s parody version of the former president that she went head-to-head with on Saturday night. Her campaign’s framing of the event, however, highlights the show’s power in US politics and campaigns.

SNL has influenced candidate evaluations in past elections

From a research perspective, Haley’s SNL appearance may just give her the upper hand in controlling the campaign narrative as SNL impressionist comedy has been found to have impacts on candidate evaluations and voting intentions. For instance, during the 2008 election, Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin led to more negative evaluations of the real Palin. The Fey/Palin phenomenon is often attributed to SNL getting in at the right time – Palin was still building her national profile when Fey first impersonated her, leading both the public and media to use Fey’s version as a point of reference.

Unlike Palin, Haley has spent months on the campaign trail building her national profile. But her SNL appearance still has significant potential for political impact. Appearing on comedy programs and embracing jokes about themselves has been found to have positive effects for political candidates. And indeed, Haley has been praised by many for being a “good sport” and showing her sense of humor in the wake of the SNL appearance.

Americans more likely to watch SNL than several traditional news programs

Despite being introduced as “a concerned South Carolina voter”, Haley appeared in full candidate mode on Saturday night. Not wasting any of her two and a half minutes of screentime, she cut straight to the chase, asking James Austin Johnson’s Trump why he would not debate her. While at first glance, Haley appearing on SNL may seem like an odd campaign move, the show has proven to be a popular political battleground for candidates on both sides of the political aisle, from John McCain to Barack Obama and Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton.

Among the American public, SNL is not only a popular source for entertainment, but also a popular source for political information. The 2020 American National Election Study showed that Americans were more likely to frequently watch SNL than several well-known traditional news programs like Meet the Press, Tucker Carlson Tonight and CBS Evening News. While not everyone who watches SNL watches it to receive political information, they are still subject to incidental exposure – learning about politics without having actively sought this type of information out. Appearing on the show thus opens up several opportunities to reach otherwise hard to reach voter groups, including less politically interested members of the public.

“30 Rock Saturday Night Live 40th Anniver” (CC BY 2.0) by Anthony Quintano

Haley’s appearance on SNL could help her reach a crucial voting bloc: Democrats 

SNL is widely regarded as a more liberal-leaning program and its audience is predominantly made up of Democratic-leaning voters. From that perspective, Haley’s choice to appear on SNL may have been an odd one after all while she seeks the Republican nomination. But in a primary season unlike any other in recent history, Haley has found herself in quite a unique position. Democratic-leaning voters looking to prevent another Trump presidency have been drumming up support for Haley during the primaries.

One SuperPAC, Primary Pivot, has even urged registered Democrats to change their party affiliation during the primaries to vote for Haley in the Republican contests to ensure Trump does not become the nominee. Appearing on SNL gave Haley a chance to make her case to Democratic voters who may be considering strategic primary voting. She seemed to be acutely aware of her audience on Saturday night. During her two and a half minutes on air, she only mentioned Biden once, in a jab about his and Trump’s age. The rest of her dialogue was dedicated to attacking Trump on a variety of topics which many in SNL’s audience would be likely to agree with.

Course-correction through humor

Beyond attacking Trump, Haley also took a page out of Hillary Clinton’s SNL strategy book, using her appearance to address a recent controversy from the campaign trail that many have referred to as “perhaps her biggest flub.” In December, she had received backlash for saying the cause of the Civil War had been “the role of government.” On Saturday night, host Ayo Edebiri asked whether Haley thought the answer instead “starts with an ‘s’ and ends with a ‘lavery’” to which Haley responded “Yep, I probably should have said that the first time.”

With one sentence, she not only corrected her “biggest flub” of the campaign trail but also owned it. Many social media users interpreted this positively, saying that it showed how she was willing to acknowledge her own mistakes or shortcomings and learn from them.

Haley’s SNL appearance gives her a strategic advantage

Comments such as these highlight the effectiveness of Haley’s campaign strategy of engaging with SNL to direct public discourse. In just under three minutes, she course-corrected on her own shortcomings and attacked and mocked Trump – by proxy – on his refusal to participate in serious political debate, his legal troubles, his finances, his cognitive abilities (“Are you okay, Donald? You might need a mental competency test.”), his age, and his electoral record.

As would be expected based on previous research on SNL’s agenda setting power, these topics have now informed public discourse about Haley, both on social media and in traditional news media. The latter has even begun to reflect the campaign’s own framing of the event: Haley going head-to-head with Trump. Just after the show on Saturday, Haley herself further fueled the public discourse by taking another jab at Trump on X, formerly Twitter: “Had a blast tonight on SNL! Know it was past Donald’s bedtime so looking forward to the stream of unhinged tweets in the a.m.”

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