Biden, Trump court Haley voters

Former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley repeatedly promised to stay in the presidential race as long as she could compete with former President Donald Trump. After narrowly winning only one Super Tuesday primary election, she accepted the fact that she no longer could.

Speaking from a flag-backed podium in Charleston, S.C.—where she began her campaign over a year ago—Haley said she had no regrets.

“I am filled with gratitude for the outpouring of support we’ve received from across our great country. But the time has now come to suspend my campaign,” Haley said to a mostly empty room of reporters and staff at her campaign headquarters. “Although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in. … I sought the honor of being your president, but in our great country, being a private citizen is privilege enough in itself.”

She congratulated Trump on his likely GOP nomination but stopped short of endorsing him, leaving the question open of where her small but significant base will go. After her announcement, Trump and President Joe Biden each urged Haley’s supporters to back them. She might not have captured the party nomination, but Haley could still influence who wins the White House in November.

Across all states that have held primaries so far, roughly 2.8 million Americans voted for Haley. She performed best among moderate and independent voters, especially in states that held open primaries. In New Hampshire and Iowa, Democrats crossed the aisle to cast primary ballots for her.

Haley embraced those voters and said the GOP should be a “party of addition.” Trump called her stance a betrayal of Republicanism. He said that any Republicans who supported Haley would be “barred permanently” from the Make America Great Again movement.

On Tuesday, the Biden campaign released an ad featuring a montage of voters saying they supported Haley but would vote for Biden in November if she dropped out. It was the first time the Biden campaign specifically targeted her, making a bold grasp at her scattered base. A pro-Haley super political action committee called Primary Pivot on Wednesday relaunched as “Haley Voters for Biden.”

Most recent polling found Haley defeating Biden by as many as 13 points in a head-to-head contest in November. In 2020, Biden won the popular vote by just over 7 million votes. Average polling now finds Trump narrowly defeating Biden in November, but the results are within the poll’s margin of error.

“While Trump has been busy denigrating people voting for Haley, they must realize they need all of them to vote Trump in the fall,” said Christopher Nicholas, a Pennsylvania-based Republican consultant. “A large number of Haley voters are not settled yet on voting for Trump, so that has to worry any campaign. If an unaffiliated voter is energized enough to vote in a primary, they’re surely going to vote in the general election.”

Trump did not mention Haley during his victory speech on Tuesday night. He spent time thanking his campaign and called Biden the worst president the country ever had. As of today, he has earned 995 delegates to the Republican National Convention and is the assumed presidential nominee.

“I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee,” Haley said when she suspended her campaign. “But on this question, as she did on so many others, Margaret Thatcher provided some good advice when she said, ‘Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.’ It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it, who did not support him, and I hope he does that.”

Fifteen states held GOP primaries on what’s known as Super Tuesday. The sweeping elections determine which candidate gets roughly a third of the delegates to the parties’ nominating conventions. They are designed to quickly consolidate support behind one nominee.

Haley again performed well among moderate and independent voters. Her campaign centered on attacking Trump’s record and promoting fiscal conservatism. She called for mental competency tests for aging politicians, term limits, healthcare reform, and better border security. But she won only the Vermont and Washington, D.C., primaries. In deep red states like Alabama, Haley received just 13 percent of the primary vote.

“I’m an accountant, I know 40 percent isn’t 50,” she said to laughter at an election night party last month in South Carolina, where she won 39.5 percent of the GOP vote. “But what I also know is that 40 percent is not some tiny group.”

Stuart West voted for Trump in the Washington, D.C., primary but attended Haley’s rally in the same hotel that was his polling place.

“I was really rooting for her at the beginning, and I still sort of am, I guess,” he told WORLD. “She has great professionalism about her. I just don’t think, unfortunately, that she has enough support. So I don’t think that had I voted for her it would have counted towards progressing where we need to go.”

Campaign volunteers say they were most impressed with Haley’s drive. Zoe Owen, 53, brought her homeschooled children to a Haley phone bank when she ran for governor in South Carolina. This year, she volunteered to knock on doors throughout her hometown of Columbia, S.C., sell merchandise, and make calls again.

“I knew this was going to be a scary campaign,” Owen told me. “When I started wearing my Nikki Haley T-shirt around town, Trump people started screaming at me. A guy in Barnes & Noble saw me and yelled out that Nikki can go straight to hell.”

Owen was surprised to watch Haley concede the race on Tuesday. She said Haley should continue to campaign, especially if Trump faces penalties in several criminal trials pending against him. Owen is a lifelong Republican, something she points out Trump is not.

“These are not real Republicans. These are people who came into the party with Donald Trump in 2016,” Owen said. “I still believe it’s a possibility Nikki Haley gets enough delegates at the convention, especially if Donald Trump is incarcerated or something happens so that she can still be the nominee. She is the only true Republican that will be on the ballot. ”

Owen plans to write in Haley’s name when she votes in the general election.

“What surprised me was her ability to outflank the rest of the field,” Nicholas said. “I would have to think that part of her calculus in suspending her campaign today is related to what she thinks she can do in 2028. She is an adroit, intelligent politico who can figure out the lay of the land pretty quickly.”

Lawmakers in Washington are also quickly determining the lay of the land.

“It’s time to unite. I’ll be supporting Trump 100 percent,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., the only member of Congress who endorsed and stumped for Haley on the campaign trail. In previous interviews, he said Trump was a good president, but it was time for new and younger leadership. After Haley’s speech, he said he’d be putting in a call to Trump.

Less than an hour after Haley’s announcement, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., formally endorsed Trump. And at a House leadership news conference on Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., discussed Trump’s all-but-guaranteed nomination.

“The race is set now. It’s a rematch, and we like that rematch,” he said.

WORLD’s Leo Briceno contributed to this report.