Nikki Haley‘s endurance as a top hindrance to former President Donald Trump‘s reelection campaign in Republican primary contests has not abated more than two months after dropping out of the 2024 race.
Tuesday night’s primaries in Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia showed Haley, Trump’s former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is still bringing in double-digit results despite no longer running for president.
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In deep-blue Maryland, Haley won 20% of the GOP primary, compared to Trump’s 80%. In ruby-red Nebraska, Haley won nearly 18% of the vote, while Trump won 80.2% of the vote.
Haley won just a little over 9% of the vote in West Virginia as Trump won 88.4%, a sign that even in friendlier Trump territory Republicans are still choosing to snub the former president.
One week prior, Haley won nearly 22% of the vote in Indiana’s GOP primary, with Trump winning 78.3% of the vote.
But where Haley has the ability to truly kneecap her former boss is in the handful of battleground states that the 2024 race will come down to. In Pennsylvania, a state that Trump lost in 2020, Haley pulled in more than 158,000 votes, or 16.6% of the vote. Haley won nearly 13% of the vote in Wisconsin, another battleground state, last month.
President Joe Biden’s campaign has repeatedly made attempts to woo Haley supporters put off by Trump’s brashness.
“Donald Trump, his barely existent campaign, failed record, and toxic agenda lost tens of thousands of Republican voters to Nikki Haley — who dropped out 69 days ago,” Biden spokesman Ammar Moussa said in a statement Tuesday night. “Trump enters the general election as a weak candidate, unable to build the coalition needed to win 270 electoral votes.”
“Trump and his allies mocked Haley supporters and told moderate voters he doesn’t need them — and now these voters are saying they don’t want him either,” Moussa continued. “As President Biden has said, there is a place for Haley voters in our campaign and he believes we can find common ground.”
Unlike Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who dropped out of the race and immediately endorsed Trump, Haley doesn’t appear to be following that path.
The former South Carolina governor met with a group of about 100 donors in Charleston, South Carolina, on Monday and Tuesday. Haley thanked the group for supporting her campaign but did not endorse Trump or encourage the group to support her former boss’s campaign.
“There actually wasn’t a lot of talks about President Trump,” Eric Tanenblatt, a fundraiser for Haley who attended the retreat, told the Washington Examiner. “It was more of a thank-you event to donors and really a look back as to how the campaign invested, how they spent the money.”
The Wall Street Journal reported news of the Haley donor retreat, where her team shared the campaign and allies raised $162 million.
Trump recently nixed reports that Haley was being considered as his running mate in a Truth Social post.
“Nikki Haley is not under consideration for the V.P. slot, but I wish her well! DJT,” Trump posted on Saturday.
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But there is growing consensus among some Republicans that Haley and her supporters will need to be folded into Trump’s campaign before the November election.
“There’s no doubt that Nikki Haley continues to play an outsize role in the direction of the Republican Party. It’s smart of her to continue to keep these donors close,” a former Haley staffer told the Washington Examiner. “If Donald Trump wants to win in November, he’ll need the Haley Coalition on his side.”
“This is going to be a very close election. And I think in order for President Trump and Republicans to be successful we have to be a united party,” Tanenblatt said. “But really, it’s not an entitlement. There has to be an effort on the part of President Trump and his campaign to reach out to Haley supporters. I can’t speak for others that were involved in the Haley campaign or for Nikki herself, but there’s been no outreach to me.”