Former Republican candidate for the White House Nikki Haley, who has in the past sharply criticized Donald Trump, announced on Wednesday May 22 that she would vote for him in November, calling on him to “reach out” to moderate voters who chose her in the primaries. This announcement could well reignite speculation about the vice-presidential race on the right, even if Mr. Trump recently assured that Nikki Haley was not among the people he was considering for the position.
The former UN ambassador spoke in public for the first time since leaving the race for the Republican nomination. Asked by the conservative think tank Hudson Institute about the best candidate for president, she said she placed her “priorities in a president who (…) will secure the border” and “will support capitalism and freedom”. “Trump hasn’t been perfect on these issues. I have made this clear on many occasions,” she added. But Democratic President Joe “Biden is a disaster. So I will vote for Trump,” she said.
Appreciated by many moderate and independent Republican voters, the former governor of South Carolina, however, issued a warning. The ex-president should “reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and who continue to support me, and not assume that they will line up behind him,” she said.
Between them, an acrimonious relationship
Faced with a Republican ultra-favorite Donald Trump, Ms. Haley threw in the towel in March. But she continued to collect a notable number of votes in certain primaries, illustrating the refusal of moderate voters to rally behind the billionaire’s candidacy. When she ended her run for the White House, she gave her troops no voting instructions, saying it was up to the real estate mogul to “deserve the votes” she received.
Once cordial, the relationship between Donald Trump and his former ambassador had for months become acrimonious. Fond of unflattering nicknames, he called her “Sparrow Brain” several times. Holding outright conservative positions on the market economy, crime and morals, Nikki Haley has attracted many centrist or independent voters by banking on the desire for political renewal.
During her campaign, she constantly said that Mr. Trump was synonymous with chaos and that he would cause the Republicans to lose the presidential election. For political scientist Larry Sabato, it was nevertheless obvious that Nikki Haley would vote for Mr. Trump. “There are very few prominent Republicans who have the courage of Liz Cheney,” who was a leading Republican in Congress before becoming one of the business mogul’s leading critics in the wake of the Capitol attack by his supporters on January 6, 2021.
Donald Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, announced in March that he would not support him for the presidential election. In reaction to Nikki Haley’s announcement, Joe Biden’s campaign team released a video of Donald Trump in which he claims that all of the former governor’s voters will vote for him. “And I’m not sure I need much,” he said.