Nikki Haley Has Backed Trump. Will Her Voters?

This episode delves into Nikki Haley's endorsement of Donald Trump and its potential impact on her voter base and the broader political landscape.

1. Nikki Haley's endorsement of Trump is seen as a strategic move to position herself favorably within the GOP, despite past criticisms of Trump.
2. The episode highlights the ongoing struggle within the Republican Party between traditional conservatism and Trump's brand of politics.
3. Haley's support might help Trump consolidate some votes in key battleground states, though it's unclear if it will significantly sway Haley's base.
4. The political maneuvers suggest Haley is positioning herself for a potential future role in a Trump-led administration or the broader Republican landscape.
5. The discussion raises questions about the impact of such endorsements on voter behavior, particularly among those disillusioned with both major candidates.

1: Introduction

Hosts introduce the topic of Nikki Haley's endorsement of Trump, outlining the episode's focus on its implications. Sarah McCammon: "That, of course, is Nikki Haley speaking to a conservative think tank."

2: Haley's Political Calculations

Analysis of Haley's motivations and the potential impact on her political career and Trump's campaign. Franco Ordonez: "I mean, it's definitely a boost."

3: Voter Impact

Discussion on how Haley's endorsement might influence her voter base and broader electoral implications. Mara Liasson: "It's about Nikki Haley."

4: Republican Dynamics

Exploration of the broader Republican Party dynamics and Trump's influence within the party. Mara Liasson: "And he looks like a winner now."

5: Conclusion

Summation of the episode's key points and reflections on political strategies moving forward. Sarah McCammon: "Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast."

• Reflect on political endorsements and their influence on personal voting decisions.
• Consider the broader implications of party dynamics when evaluating candidates.
• Stay informed about the political landscape to make more educated voting choices.
• Discuss political developments in community or social groups to gauge broader opinions.
• Critically evaluate political news and sources for a balanced understanding of events.

The former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina governor continued to receive protest votes in the Republican presidential primary contest long after she dropped out. Now, Nikki Haley says she'll vote for Trump. How many of her voters will follow her lead?

This episode: national political correspondent Sarah McCammon, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.

This podcast was produced by Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

People

Nikki Haley, Donald Trump, Joe Biden

Content Warnings:

None

Mara Liasson
Support for NPR and the following message come from Carvana on a mission to make car buying more convenient and affordable than ever before. In minutes, you can browse thousands of options under $20,000. Visit carvana.com, or download the app today to get started.

Sarah McCammon
Hi, my name is Bonnie, and I'm here with my daughter Mara, who was named when I was listening to the NPR Politics podcast and heard Mara Liasson.

So cool. This podcast was recorded at 01:07 p.m. eastern time on Thursday, May 23, 2024. Things may have changed by the time you hear it.

Nikki Haley
Okay, here's the show.

Mara Liasson
Oh, future broadcaster for sure.

Sarah McCammon
A little more.

Franco Ordonez
We love all morrows.

Sarah McCammon
Yes, we do. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign.

Franco Ordonez
I'm Frank Ordonez. I also cover the presidential campaign.

Mara Liasson
And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.

Nikki Haley
As a voter, I put my priorities on a president who's going to have the backs of our allies and hold our enemies to account, who would secure the border.

No more excuses.

A president who would support capitalism and freedom, a president who understands we need less debt, not more debt. Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I've made that clear many, many times.

But Biden has been a catastrophe, so I will be voting for Trump.

Sarah McCammon
That, of course, is Nikki Haley speaking to a conservative think tank in Washington, DC on Wednesday. The former UN ambassador and former South Carolina governor and former GOP presidential hopeful says she is backing Donald Trump, at least in her capacity as a voter. So I want to start there. Hailey dropped out of the republican primary back in March, and she held off on endorsing Trump. She is technically stopping short, I guess, of a full endorsement here, although I'm not sure if that matters. The message is that she is behind Trump. So how much of a boost is this for him?

Franco Ordonez
I mean, it's definitely a boost. I mean, how much, I think is still to be determined. But the reality is Trump has had a lot of trouble with Hailey voters. She has continued to draw anywhere from 20% of the vote in GOP primary context, even months after she dropped out, as you said, in early March in Arizona, Haley won 18% of the vote, 16% in Pennsylvania, double digits in Georgia, in Michigan. These are not insignificant numbers, and Trump needs some of these numbers in order to kind of close some of these margins, because I'm talking about battleground states as well.

Mara Liasson
Yeah, there are polls that we saw all during the primaries that showed a certain number of Haley voters said they would never vote for Trump. Now, that's a hypothetical question. We assume that in reality, many of those people who said they wouldn't vote for him actually will. Some of them will stay home.

Maybe some of them will vote for Biden. I agree with Franco. This what I call semi endorsement. It's not a real endorsement. It's Hailey wanting to have it both ways, as she has wanted for her entire career. This is completely in character.

It makes it maybe a little bit easier for some of her supporters to vote for him. But this was not about moving voters. What she said was all about her political future. 100%.

Sarah McCammon
It's about Nikki Haley.

Mara Liasson
It's about Nikki Haley.

Sarah McCammon
But as Franco was saying, the ghost of Hayley has kind of lingered over this campaign. We've seen her doing surprisingly well in some of the states that have had primaries since she dropped out because she was still on the ballot. In many cases. It seems like a lot of Republicans still aren't wanting to rally around Donald Trump. I guess what we're trying to get at here is, does this change that very much?

Mara Liasson
Maybe a tiny bit. Remember, she went from, Donald Trump is unhinged and not qualified to be president, period. Two hes not been perfect. This is kind of a case study in a very political politician. You know, she said some really, really tough things about him even after it was clear that she wasnt going to get the nomination. He doesnt deserve a drivers license, let alone being president.

Donald Trump is not willing to stand up for our allies.

He sided with Vladimir Putin. I mean, on and on and on. This was very tough stuff, and she did it after she didn't need to do it anymore.

Franco Ordonez
This kind of language that Mara is talking about really resonated with a segment of the GOP electorate. Now, some of those voters are never gonna go back to Trump. They were never Trumpers. But others may not go either because they were fed up with the party's direction after January 6 and the efforts to overturn the election. I do think, or I mean, I think polls reflect this as well, that most of them probably will go back to Trump.

And Haley saying that she'll vote for Trump may also likely nudge some more, maybe to kind of hold their nose and pull the lever for Trump. But I think there are still big questions because of these battleground states. The margins are so little that if enough, stay home. And there's very clearly that some of these Hailey voters would not vote for Trump and will never, if enough of them don't vote for Trump. And just stay home. That could have a significant impact.

Mara Liasson
And don't forget, a lot of these Hayley voters were Democrats in the primaries that allowed them to vote in the republican primary. There were states that made it easy to do that. So we don't even know exactly who's in this universe and if all of them are actually Republicans.

Sarah McCammon
And there were some efforts, although I think they were pretty low key by some democratic backed groups, to encourage Democrats to do that. Not sure how much of a difference they made. You know, I want to go back quickly to something Mara was saying, which is about the way that Hailey's tone has changed, developed, you could say, maybe flip flopped on Trump. I covered her campaign. I sort of watched her become increasingly pointed in her rebukes of Trump as she got closer and closer to a one on one race with him. And then right before the South Carolina primary, you probably both remember, this was a critical moment for her, her home state, where she needed to make a strong showing. She gave this big speech where she said, I'm not dropping out.

Nikki Haley
I feel no need to kiss the ring. I have no fear of Trump's retribution. I'm not looking for anything from him.

Sarah McCammon
So at that point, she was sort of doubling down on presenting a challenge to Trump.

Not so much right now, no.

Mara Liasson
And dont forget, she also said hes the most disliked politician in America and we cant win a general election with him. I mean, these are the ad makes itself. Somebody is going to compile these and put them out.

Franco Ordonez
Yeah. I mean, but I think theres certainly a different political calculation that she was making then as she is making now. And shes thinking about her political future, the direction of the republican party. Shes got a long career ahead of her in republican politics, and she really doesnt have many other options, if you think about it.

Trump, take Liz Cheney for a moment, you know, who was a rising star. You know, they just get pushed out. Yeah.

Mara Liasson
And he looks like a winner now. He might have looked like a loser to her earlier, but he's leading in all the battleground states. And to me, Haley is emblematic of the real story of Donald Trump. And the real story of Donald Trump has been the Republican Party completely capitulating to him. Now, the base found him appealing, sincerely, but there are many, many, many members of the republican establishment who feel exactly as Nikki Haley did when she made all those negative comments about him, but understand that their political futures depend on them being loyal to him.

Sarah McCammon
Amy and Mara, you just mentioned those polls. Do you think that's why she's doing this now. Why she chose this moment?

Mara Liasson
Well, I think she's had to think about this for a while, ever since it was clear she didn't have a path to the nomination. And she came up with this formula where she's gonna vote for him, but she's not endorsing him, where he hasn't been perfect. But this is, you know, Hailey did this when she was a member of the Trump administration. Sometimes she'd be really independent. She used those 300 something miles between New York and Washington to the best advantage I have ever seen. You know, one day she'd be criticizing him or putting some distance. The next time she was sitting in the Oval Office with him getting a wonderful, warm and affectionate sendoff. I don't know if this, as a famous politician named Bill Clinton used to say, maintains her viability or not.

Sarah McCammon
This is, I think, one of the things about politics that frustrates a lot of people. But it's also arguably exactly why Nikki Haley made it as far as she made it and is still in the conversation.

Mara Liasson
And this is why people are cynical about politicians.

Sarah McCammon
All right, we're going to take a quick break here. We'll have more in just a moment.

Nikki Haley
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Sarah McCammon
And we're back. Of course, this has implications for President Biden, too. He's really been trying to court these republican leaning voters who may have backed Nikki Haley in the primary. He's trying to woo them to his side.

What does this mean for those efforts?

Mara Liasson
I think they continue.

This might make it a little bit harder, but the initial response from the Biden campaign was, we still welcome Hailey voters. And they're going to remind Hailey voters of all the reasons they voted for Hailey instead of Trump. As Franco said, these are very tight elections. They're going to be won on the margins. And I think the Biden campaign will still be going after them. And don't forget, a lot of the Hailey voters are white, college educated suburbanites. And that has become a really important part of the democratic coalition as other parts of the coalition have weakened, like young voters and african american and hispanic voters.

Franco Ordonez
Just adding to what Mara is saying. I mean, when the Biden campaign put out a statement, you know, they're saying nothing has changed. And they're also using some of Haley's own words, you know, to make the argument that her voters should come over to the Biden campaign. When Haley said that she was gonna vote for Trump, she said that she was gonna back Allele, who stands up for us allies against foreign adversaries. I mean, Donald Trump clearly is kind of questionable on that. We all remember, and weve all reported on the difficult relations hes had with us allies in the west and the relationships hes built with adversaries, whether its russian president, Vladimir Putin, whether its Kim Jong un of North Korea, whether its Viktor Orban of Hungary.

I think Biden is going to continue, as Maher is saying, just continuing to go after that segment of the Haley voters that has raised questions about Trump's policy, particularly on foreign policy as well as democracy.

Mara Liasson
Yeah. And Hailey has been very, very harsh on that. She said anybody that can't call out a dictator is a problem.

Franco Ordonez
Sarah, can I ask you, I mean, you spent a lot of time with Hailey voters. I mean, what is your sense? How will the voters see this?

Sarah McCammon
Yeah, it's a really interesting question, and I think it's one that bears reporting out further. But based on my time on the campaign trail, mostly in South Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa, I met a lot of Hailey voters, you know, some who were independents who were sort of Haley curious. Others, I would say the typical Haley voter was a Republican or a republican leaning person who maybe had voted for Trump in the past but was just tired of all of it, and wanted something new, wanted the party to, to not be so aligned with Trumpism.

But when you'd ask them what'll you do if Trump is the republican nominee, you would hear so often, I just don't know. I just don't know. Maybe I'll write in Nikki Haley. Maybe I'll vote third party. I didn't hear a lot of people say they'd vote for Biden, though. I have to tell you that now. This is my anecdotal experience, but that's what I heard from Hailey voters.

Mara Liasson
By and large, anytime a potential supporter of your opponent stays home, it's a good day for you. So staying home is not the best thing for Joe Biden, but it's better than those people voting for Trump.

Sarah McCammon
That's true. I want to go back to something that Mauro said a moment ago that we touched on a moment ago, which is the challenge that Biden is facing with parts of his own coalition. You know, how bad is this news for him? If he lost parts of sort of the left, maybe he was going to go to the center and get some of these Hailey voters. Is that still a viable strategy?

Mara Liasson
Sure. It's like how much, it's unclear, but he needs the demographic that Hailey's voters represented, suburban, college educated voters, and maybe he can get some of them. The biggest divide in american voting behavior right now is education. College educated voters tend to vote democratic, and non college educated voters of all races and ethnicities are moving to republicans.

Franco Ordonez
I think they expected this to eventually happen. Most of the democratic and republican strategists I talked to said this was going to be an eventual happening. And I don't think it changes their approach of trying to carve off as many of those voters as they can.

Sarah McCammon
So Hailey has come around to Trump, as you said, Franco, not a huge surprise. Certainly not, as Mahrz indicated, in this republican party. But what role do we think that Hailey is going to play going forward, you know, the rest of this campaign?

Mara Liasson
Well, the big question, of course, is would Donald Trump reverse himself and offer her the vice presidential spot? He said he doesn't want to.

She certainly would take it. I've stuck to that prediction for months and months, but I don't know if that will happen. I think that Hayley could get a job in the administration.

Sarah McCammon
She has before.

Mara Liasson
She has before.

Franco Ordonez
I'm not on the bandwagon of Maher's bandwagon about that. She would accept the vp position.

I'm not saying she won't. She would maybe. But I think it would be a difficult question. We all know the vps who Trump has. You know, the one VP, I guess there's only one example, but it's kind of a rocky road being Trump's VP. And as Mara was saying we were talking about earlier, she's shown some independence. That said, I really don't think that Trump is going to pick her as.

Mara Liasson
No, he doesn't have to. He doesn't have to. He feels like he's leading. Republicans are extremely confident right now.

Franco Ordonez
If you look at the list of VP potential candidates, there are others that kind of fit the role that Nikki Haley could play on the party. You know, the strong on foreign policy. Look at Marco Rubio looking at kind of like crossing lines. Look at Tim Scott. That said, it would help Trump to bring her aboard in some capacity.

Sarah McCammon
You know, a few months ago when I was covering her campaign and hearing her become increasingly sort of pointed in her criticism of Trump, I would have said no way that she would accept if she were offered. But I think I'm on Team Mara now because you know what? She's clearly an ambitious person with a long game in mind. And whether it's VP or some other position in the administration, Nikki Haley wants to have a career going forward. One thing I think this does, too, is it lets her speak at the convention.

Mara Liasson
Right.

Sarah McCammon
Which is often an important moment for up and coming members of the party.

One last question before we go for both of you. Who needs these Nikki Haley voters more, Trump or Biden?

Mara Liasson
Right now? Biden, because he's behind.

Franco Ordonez
I mean, I would argue that Trump needs them more with these numbers that they've been seeing, the 20% in battleground states. Trump really needs to bring back more of those voters. I think there are big questions. You know, we've talked a lot about the coalition, Biden's coalition and the problems he has in his coalition. This is a clear example of the challenges that Trump has with his coalition.

Sarah McCammon
Ok, we're going to leave it here for today. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign.

Franco Ordonez
I'm Frank Ordonez. I also cover the presidential campaign.

Mara Liasson
And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.

Sarah McCammon
Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.

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