Even after former U.N Ambassador Nikki Haley released her 97 delegates ahead of the Republican National Convention, her supporters still have doubts on backing former President Donald Trump this November.
Earlier this year, Haley and Trump were engaged in what became a bitter and personal primary feud. Initially, when the former South Carolina governor dropped out of the race in March, she declined to put her support behind Trump as many of her rivals had done.
At that time, she called on Trump to give her supporters a reason to come back into the fold. While Haley has since said she will vote for Trump, some of her voters aren’t so sure they’re ready to do the same.
“Trump has said he doesn’t need Nikki’s supporters to win in the past, and I don’t believe that’s true,” said Tom Woody, an Iowa Republican who caucused for Haley in January. “I know I am not alone in looking for an alternative to what we have.”
Woody, who considers himself a conservative, said Trump has not won over his vote and he finds himself in a difficult spot ahead of the November election. An apparent attempt to assassinate Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday is sure to animate the base of voters who already support the former president, but it is unclear whether it will move independents and skeptical Republicans into his corner.
“There are a lot of people out there, like me, that don’t see Trump as a true conservative or Republican,” Woody explained. “It’s a tough position that we find ourselves in, I don’t think that I – I might abstain from voting and that’s something that I also don’t believe in.”
Woody isn’t alone. Alissa Baker, who was a volunteer on Haley’s Virginia leadership team, also admits she has no idea what she’ll do in November, especially since her state appears to be more competitive this cycle.
“Originally, I was kind of comfortable that Virginia wasn’t really in play, but now it is,” Baker said. “Where my head is at is I would still think that Donald Trump does need to reach out to Haley’s voters.”
“I’m still waiting,” Baker said of Trump’s outreach. “You know maybe next week we’ll get that answer [at the Republican National Convention].
A spokeswoman for Haley confirmed earlier in the week that the former South Carolina governor would not be attending the RNC in Milwaukee. According to new reporting from NBC News, Haley has been invited to speak at the convention, although details have yet to be finalized. Haley’s camp did not immediately return The Washington Examiner’s request for comment, and it’s still unclear whether she will ultimately speak or not.
“She was not invited, and she’s fine with that,” Chaney Denton told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday of this week. “Trump deserves the convention he wants. She’s made it clear she’s voting for him and wishes him the best.”
Voters who supported Haley like Baker want Haley to be at the convention next week.
“People were sending a message, not just of support for Nikki, but also a message to the Republican Party, to say that we were looking at going in another direction, so if you want us to come back into the fold here, the voice needs to be represented,” Baker explained.
“I do think that having her there would be an important show of understanding that these voices are being heard and I think it would be helpful to the overall idea of unity.”
Is GOP a ‘big tent’ party?
A number of GOP senators also agree that Haley should be included in the convention.
“I think we need a big tent, I think we need to be appealing to all those people,” said Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS). “I would support Nikki Haley and others being there at the convention.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who has openly feuded with Trump and voted to convict him on the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection in 2021, has said she won’t be attending the convention and plans to write in Haley’s name on election day.
Collins, speaking to the Washington Examiner, said the Trump camp should be making a better effort to reach out to Haley’s supporters.
“She released her delegates to vote for them. I think very highly of her and hope there is a lot more outreach to her – I’d like to see her speak at the convention,” Collins said.
Haley earned tens of thousands of primary votes this cycle, underscoring a discontent among a faction of Republicans with Trump. Even after she ended her 2024 bid, 22% of voters in Indiana’s open GOP primary chose Haley. Even in April, 155,000 Pennsylvania Republicans voted for her over the former president. She also notched 13% of the vote in Wisconsin in March after receiving 18% in Arizona, 13% in Georgia, and 14% in Florida the week following Super Tuesday.
Doug Heye, a longtime Republican strategist and a former communications director of the RNC, said Trump’s personal attacks against Haley toward the end of the primary season could have negative repercussions for his own campaign.
“He kept kicking her and [her supporters] and giving them reasons to, you know, maybe less of them go over to him or they go over more slowly,” Heye explained. “That really impacts things as you’re doing voter targeting and data and so forth.”
Heye admits a good portion of Haley’s voters are likely to stick with Trump, especially in the aftermath of Biden’s poor debate performance, even though the Biden campaign has attempted to reach out to them, according to reports.
“Part of the challenge that Biden faces right now, with everything we’ve seen in the last two weeks is it makes it harder to win those people over, who he could have won a sizable portion of. I think getting 15 to 20 percent of the Republican vote is very sizeable – but he can’t get over those very legitimate questions of whether or not he can serve for another four years,” Heye said. “That was part of Nikki Haley’s campaign right? She wasn’t campaigning against Joe Biden really at all. It was against Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.”
The Republican National Committee said “Republicans, Independents and disillusioned Democrats” are supporting Trump, but made no mention of Haley’s supporters directly.
“While Joe Biden’s own campaign is debating replacing him as the nominee and prominent Democrats are calling on him to step down, President Trump just passed his 2024 Platform with overwhelming support,” Anna Kelly, an RNC spokeswoman said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
Voting to get Haley back in government
Matthew Tsien, who created a pro-Haley Facebook group which boasts 8,000 members, believes 70% of the members of the group will ultimately vote for Trump, but many won’t admit it publicly.
“We’re doing it quietly – we are not proud of who we are going to vote for,” Tsien said, who lives in Fort Lauderdale. “Trump says a lot of reckless things. I can’t say specifically he ever reached out to us, but I think the reason why so many Nikki Haley Republicans have returned to the party is they’re voting for the party’s principles.”
Tsien, who has changed his Facebook group name to say “Nikki Haley for President 2028,” said part of the reason he’s voting for Trump is because it’s the only way to potentially get Haley back into government and into a cabinet position.
“We’re picking our best choice, it’s the most optimistic one – We want her in government because she’s going to be very influential on the world stage if Trump uses her,” he said.
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Krista Moore, a member of the same Haley Facebook group from North Carolina, said she voted for Trump in the last couple of elections, but won’t do it this year.
“My conscience won’t let me do it – I don’t like him as a man. I don’t think he’s the role model that I want for my grandchildren. I don’t think a convicted felon should be president of the United States,” Moore said.
Moore, who was a life-long Republican, recently changed her voter registration to Independent, emphasizing there’s no place for her in the party anymore. Moore recalled an incident at the North Carolina State Fair last October when she was volunteering at a GOP booth and was asked to remove her Nikki Haley for President pin.
“I show up, and it’s a Trump booth, and this is in October, and looked around and they were selling Trump paraphernalia. So I put my Nicki pin on, and I was told that I had to take it off,” Moore said.
“I didn’t take it off, but more than a handful of people that were a part of the local GOP were telling me that I needed to, and at the end of the day, it left a bad taste in my mouth.”
Moore said she’s unsure who she will vote for, but it won’t be Biden or Trump.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, am I going to go in and write in Nikki’s name? That would be kind of silly. But it also would be to not show up at the polls,” she said.
“Could he earn my vote – so to speak? I’d be shocked if he did. There’s so much that has been done that can’t be put back in the bottle.”
