Will Trump Court Haley's Faithful Or Forge His Own Path?

Trump's dominance within the party was evident as he won all but two primary contests before Haley's departure. However, exit polls revealed a significant portion of Haley's supporters in states such as New Hampshire, Virginia, and North Carolina were reluctant to back Trump in the November election. This has provided a glimmer of hope for Democrats who are concerned about President Biden's vulnerabilities. They speculate that Trump may struggle to unify Republicans and secure the necessary support to defeat Biden in the Electoral College.

As Haley suspended her campaign on Wednesday, she refrained from endorsing Trump. She stated that the former president needed to "earn the votes" of those who did not support him. Trump and his team did not immediately extend an olive branch. Instead, Trump criticized Haley's support as being largely driven by Democrats and invited her supporters to back his White House bid.

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Trump's allies downplayed the need for direct outreach to Haley's voters. However, in a general election that both sides agree will likely be close, Trump can ill afford to alienate moderate Republicans. Doug Heye, a former Republican National Committee spokesperson, noted that both Biden and Trump have serious vulnerabilities within their respective parties that could weaken them in the November election. He added, "Trump may have the steeper climb because he told a lot of Republicans to pound sand, and a lot of them might do that."

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Despite her arguments that she was a more reliable bet to defeat President Biden in November, Haley never seriously threatened Trump's path to the nomination. Some of her best performances were in states like New Hampshire and Vermont, which allow independents to vote in a GOP primary. However, exit polling has shown some warning signs for Trump since the beginning of the primary, and Super Tuesday was no different. NBC News found that 31 percent of primary voters in Virginia and 34 percent in North Carolina said they would not vote for the GOP nominee regardless of who it is.

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March 08, 2024

Haley also won a majority of self-identified moderate or liberal voters in North Carolina and Virginia. Trump won a majority of women voters in both states, though by a smaller margin than he won male voters. A majority of Haley voters have consistently said in primary exit polling that Trump would not be fit to serve as president if he is convicted of a crime. He is facing 91 felony charges across four separate cases, with his trial over an alleged hush money scheme set to begin later this month in New York City.

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Haley stated on Wednesday, “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. At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing.”

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Trump, who lost the 2020 election, will need to expand his coalition beyond his fervent base of supporters to flip at least a few states in November. However, he was largely dismissive of Haley’s support as she dropped out of the race. He wrote on Truth Social, “Nikki Haley got TROUNCED last night, in record-setting fashion, despite the fact that Democrats, for reasons unknown, are allowed to vote in Vermont, and various other Republican Primaries. Much of her money came from Radical Left Democrats, as did many of her voters, almost 50%, according to the polls.”

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Vermont has an open primary, meaning all registered voters in the state can choose to cast a ballot in either party’s race. Senior Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller dismissed any outreach from Haley to Trump as “meaningless” and instead pointed to several other 2024 candidates who dropped out and backed the former president. He also dismissed the Haley campaign’s suggestion that Trump needed to appeal to the GOP primary voters who indicated they are concerned about his candidacy, calling it “just plain wrong” during a Fox News interview.

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A Decision Desk HQ average of national polls shows Trump with a roughly 2 percentage point lead over Biden at the national level. Polling averages also showed Trump leading Biden in key swing states including Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Nevada.

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A New York Times/Siena College poll published last weekend found Trump winning 97 percent of voters who said they backed him in 2020, compared with Biden winning 83 percent of those who supported him in 2020. Trump lost the 2020 election, but he would only need to flip a few states to get the 270 electoral votes needed to win in 2024.

Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said, “Right now, I’d rather have Donald Trump’s hand than Joe Biden’s hand in terms of the Electoral College, the states that are in play, as well as the issues that are driving the electorate right now. This was always going to be a tight race irrespective of who the nominees were because of this iteration of the Electoral College.”

The Biden campaign argued in a Wednesday memo that Trump was a vulnerable general election candidate, as evidenced by the primary results. Top Biden campaign officials wrote in a memo that Trump “is greatly underperforming with the voters who will decide the election in November,” noting the former president underperformed in suburban counties in Michigan, Virginia, and North Carolina, while only winning roughly a quarter of moderate voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Biden campaign officials are not planning to make persuading Republican voters a core part of their strategy with eight months left until Election Day, but the president himself made clear Wednesday he would welcome moderates disillusioned by Trump with open arms.

“Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Nikki Haley’s supporters. I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign,” Biden said in a statement. “I know there is a lot we won’t agree on,” he added. “But on the fundamental issues of preserving American democracy, on standing up for the rule of law, on treating each other with decency and dignity and respect, on preserving NATO and standing up to America’s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground.”