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Primary season in electoral politics is sweater weather. Early debates are held over the summer, but campaigns kick into gear in the fall. In the Midwest and on the East Coast, where candidates head to woo voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, the temperatures plummet, the fireside chats often take place near actual fireplaces, and the candidates keep warm in… well, mostly suits. With one notable exception.
For months, while the men have relied on their dark blue wool and rotated red ties, dropping out of the race in one embarrassing flameout after another, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has held on in more expressive and sumptuous armor: There have been not one, but two Polo Ralph Lauren American flag sweaters ($398 each). There have been peplum sweaters, fringed sweaters, prairie-forward sweaters, and at least one sweater-vest. Haley has dabbled in cable knits and belted cardigans. Her most literal statement number is a crewneck from the British brand Temperley that proclaims that “She Who Dares Wins” ($235). Get the message?
The sweaters are fine; the sweaters are nice. But multicolored knits are not the usual garb of power-dressers. Haley is running to be president of the United States of America, not of the PTA. So those of us who grew up on pantsuit memes and taxonomies of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s lace collars would like to know: What’s Haley up to here?
“It’s been this fascinating, delicate dance between femininity and feminism,” says Ali Vitali, Capitol Hill correspondent for NBC News and author of Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House…Yet. Vitali has been following Haley for months, observing how the lone woman in this primary race has dealt with what is still perceived as the issue of her gender. “Democratic women will be much more outspoken about the fact that a vote for them is a potential vote for history,” Vitali says. Republican women can’t afford to be so overt, given how wary their base is of anything that could be branded identity politics.
Instead, Vitali has watched Haley find subtler ways to make her pitch. She wears full, knee-length skirts but likes to compare her heels to easy-access weaponry. She quotes Margaret Thatcher, who said, “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.” In her stump speech, as Vitali points out, Haley celebrates the strong girls who become strong women who become “strong leaders”—and then makes an argument about barring trans girls from participating in women’s sports. She plays up trad-wife silhouettes. She touts her foreign-policy credentials.
How do you run like a woman but as a Republican? You dress softly and carry a big stick in the culture wars.
“I feel like Nikki Haley is both a step forward and a step back in terms of women in politics and power,” says Elizabeth Holmes, a former political reporter turned royal fashion expert. Holmes credits Haley for nixing the “blazer-forward” wardrobe that most women in politics have reverted to and embracing more sartorial experimentation on the trail. “One part of me is like, Yes, wear the skirts! Wear the colors!” Holmes says. But the other part of her can’t help but notice that Haley’s penchant for cozy sweaters and Midwestern momcore has served as a visual counterbalance to her sharply conservative policies.
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“Her sweaters are fashion sweaters, statement sweaters,” Holmes says. “And when you see her in them, they jump out because they are more colorful, they are more textured, they are chunkier, and they are softer. It’s a warm feeling, and I think that’s so important to her image because she’s out there saying what she’s saying—but when she does it in a knit, it sort of dulls the edges a little bit.”
The sweaters, as Holmes sees them, communicate safety and familiarity and comfort. Haley has layered several of them with white turtlenecks, the ne plus ultra of a Midwestern workhorse wardrobe. She has worn the same ones over and over—for emphasis, perhaps, and also because that’s what normal people do. When Donald Trump has wrongly claimed that she’s ineligible to be president as the daughter of Indian immigrants and trafficked in racist invective, she has, for the most part, declined to respond. Perhaps she is letting her flag sweaters speak for her. “It’s like, I’m here for America!” Holmes says. “It’s very obvious. And I do think fashion messaging is best when it’s clear.”
Last week in Iowa, temperatures dropped into the negative degrees. In the bitter cold, there weren’t just statements to make but also appendages to keep from getting frostbitten. In this race, Haley has cast herself as the practical alternative to both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and no one running on strength and pragmatism can show up in -10ºF in a sheath dress.
Haley ultimately finished third in the caucuses. Trump won 98 counties; she won one. Florida governor Ron DeSantis eked out second place (more than 30 points behind Trump), but he dropped out this weekend. The primary is now a two-person race—or “one fella and one lady,” as Haley memorably put. By all accounts, Trump is poised to win. Still, Haley is trying to make her point as inoffensively as possible. No paper trail, no damning sound bites—just a slogan crewneck. “If you’re looking for an alternative to Trump and you’re a Republican voter, visually, she’s right there,” says Holmes.
In 2021, the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit that has extensively studied the campaigns of both Democratic and Republican women candidates, published the 25th-anniversary edition of Keys to Elected Office: The Essential Guide for Women. It offered a list of suggestions to help women minimize the disproportionate appearance-based scrutiny that continues to disadvantage them. “Voters want to see women candidates look neat and pulled together,” the report reads. “Make sure your clothes aren’t wrinkled.” Rumpled clothing connotes sloppiness, and the research shows that voters punish women for it more than men.
In less than 48 hours, New Hampshire will open the polls, and so Haley has been back in her trusty flag number for the final push of do-or-die campaigning this weekend. If she’s feeling run down, the knit doesn’t show it. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that her sweaters have hit when voting has started,” Holmes says, echoing the data. “This is the sprint of the campaign trail. And it’s much easier to shake out a sweater than steam a dress.”