Nikki Haley said Wednesday that she will vote for Donald Trump in the general election, a remarkable show of support given their intense and often personal rivalry during the Republican primaries.
But Haley also made clear that she believes Trump has work to do to win over voters who supported her during the election campaign and to continue voting for her in the ongoing primaries.
“I’m going to vote for Trump,” Haley, Trump’s former U.N. ambassador, said at an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
“That said, I stand by what I said in my suspension speech,” Haley added. “Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me, and not assume they will just stick with him. And I really hope he does.”
The comments in her first public speech since leaving the race are another signal of the near-complete consolidation of Republican Party support behind Trump, even from those who have labeled him a threat in the past.
Haley halted her own bid for the Republican nomination two months ago but did not immediately endorse Trump after accusing him of causing chaos and ignoring the importance of U.S. alliances abroad, and questioning whether the 77-year-old Trump was too old to become president again.
Trump, in turn, repeatedly mocked her with the nickname “Birdbrain,” although he curtailed those attacks after securing enough delegates in March to become the presumptive Republican nominee.
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Haley’s announcement.
President Joe Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, has been working to win over its supporters, whom it considers true swing voters. Biden’s team is quietly organizing a Republicans for Biden group, which will eventually include dedicated staff and focus on the hundreds of thousands of Haley voters in each battleground state, according to people familiar with the plans but not authorized to publicly reveal them discuss.
Despite Haley’s announcement Wednesday, the Biden campaign made clear that they would continue to court voters who supported her in this year’s Republican primaries.
“Nothing has changed for the millions of Republican voters who continue to cast their ballots against Donald Trump in the primaries and care deeply about the future of our democracy, standing strong with our allies against foreign adversaries and on the other side of the working aisle to get things done. for the American people – while also rejecting the chaos, division and violence that Donald Trump embodies,” Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communications director, said in a statement. “Only one candidate shares these values, and only one campaign works hard every day to earn their support – and that is President Biden’s.”
Meanwhile, Haley made several criticisms of Biden’s foreign policy and handling of the U.S.-Mexico border in her speech Wednesday to the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington that she recently joined as she reemerges into the political realm.
Earlier this month, Haley gathered with several of her backers in South Carolina, an event characterized as a thank you to her core supporters and not as a discussion about Haley’s future political plans or intended to push her base toward another candidate .
If she runs for president again, Haley will likely have to win over former Trump supporters in a Republican primary. But her support for him now threatens to offend moderates and anti-Trump conservatives.
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Jill Colvin in New York and Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed reporting.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP
