It's a good strategy for Missouri.
Know what it's not a good strategy for? Winning back the suburbs.
This implies that suburbanites are hard right on economic views (belied by their shift to Democrats) and don't like receiving stimulus checks. An economically move to the centre without Trump's baggage can easily win over both college educated suburbanites and working class voters-Boris Johnson's victory in the UK points to this.
I think it could mean that there is a chance suburbanites are more likely to be global-minded (treaties, etc) and free-trade minded. Also- suburban women are likely to have a problem with social stances like Hawley only being willing to vote for a Supreme Ct nominee who would overturn Roe, etc.
Hawley offers an improvement on Trump wrt to trade from a suburbanite perspective since he seems to prefer industrial policy to revive American manufacturing rather than the kneejerk protectionism of Trump, which I think will be more attractive to suburbanite voters. As for the social stances, that's baked into being a national Republican nominee. Nikki Haley, were she to win the nomination, will have to affirm that she will only appoint pro-life justices for example.
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