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Primary season in electoral politics is sweater weather.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley during a campaign event at Keene Country Club on January 20, 2024 in Keene, New Hampshire.
Early debates are held over the summer, but campaigns kick into gear in the fall.
With one notable exception.
There have been peplum sweaters, fringed sweaters, prairie-forward sweaters, and at least one sweater-vest.
Haley at a town hall in Rochester, New Hampshire, on October 12
Haley has dabbled in cable knits and belted cardigans.
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.
Nikki Haley greeting attendees at a campaign event in Iowa City on January 13
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 plays up trad-wife silhouettes.
Haley speaks to the media as New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu listens on January 18, 2024, in Hollis, New Hampshire.
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.
Haley in New Hampshire on January 21
One part of me is like,Yes, wear the skirts!
Haley in New Hampshire on January 21
Her sweaters are fashion sweaters, statement sweaters, Holmes says.
The sweaters, as Holmes sees them, communicate safety and familiarity and comfort.
Haley at a caucus site in Clive, Iowa, on January 15
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 overfor emphasis, perhaps, and also because thats whatnormal peopledo.
Perhaps she is letting her flag sweaters speak for her.
Its like,Im here for America!
And I do think fashion messaging is best when its clear.
Last week in Iowa, temperaturesdroppedinto the negative degrees.
In the bitter cold, there werent just statements to make but also appendages to keep from getting frostbitten.
Haley ultimatelyfinishedthird in the caucuses.
Trump won 98 counties; she won one.
The primary is now a two-person raceor 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 bitesjust a slogan crewneck.
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.
confirm your clothes arent wrinkled.
Rumpled clothing connotes sloppiness, and the research shows that voters punish women for it more than men.
If shes feeling run down, the knit doesnt show it.
This is the sprint of the campaign trail.
And its much easier to shake out a sweater than steam a dress.
