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To beat former President Donald J. Trump in the coming months, Nikki Haley, his former ambassador to the United Nations, must stitch together a coalition of Republicans: Mr. Trumps most faithful supporters, voters who like his policies but who have grown weary of him personally, and the smaller but still vocal contingent who abhor him entirely.

Its a challenge that will test what political strategists and those who have observed Ms. Haleys ascent from her first underdog win in South Carolina have said is among her greatest skills as a candidate: an ability to calibrate her message to the moment.

Since announcing her bid in February, she has campaigned much like an old guard Republican: hawkish on foreign policy, supportive of legal immigration reform and staunchly in favor of the international alliances that Mr. Trump questioned during his administration. She has also sounded a lot like the former president, whose America First rhetoric she echoed while serving as one of his diplomats, with aggressive calls to send the U.S. military into Mexico and remarks about the need to rid schools and the military of perceived left-wing influences on hot-button cultural issues like race and transgender rights.

Other than how she has navigated Mr. Trump himself, perhaps no issue best exemplifies Ms. Haleys approach than abortion. She backed harsh restrictions on the procedure as governor of South Carolina and has called herself unapologetically pro-life on the trail, but she has struck a flexible tone as her party has flailed in countering the electoral backlash the conservative majority on the Supreme Court triggered when it overturned Roe v. Wade. Her appeals for consensus have been among the most common reasons cited for her upward climb in the polls in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist and a former aide to Mitt Romney who has known Ms. Haley since she was a state lawmaker first running for governor, said she has always been a pragmatic conservative." She is comfortable in her own skin, and she is going to win or lose based on her own values and beliefs, he said. Still, the difficulty for her, as for all the candidates attempting to emerge as a Trump alternative, is that what a conservative is has been redefined by Trump himself, he said.

Mr. Trumps lead over the field is dominant nationally and in every early state polled, and it remains uncertain that Ms. Haley could peel away enough of his faithful, no matter her approach, to come out on top. And what has so far propelled her could also become a liability, should she alienate one or more faction. Her rivals, including Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, have sought to portray her as insufficiently conservative and as someone who panders to Democrats. Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, labeled her a snake oil salesman who will say whatever she needs to say to get power.

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To Beat Trump, Nikki Haley Is Trying to Speak to All Sides of a ... - The New York Times