
Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley has vowed to continue her GOP presidential primary campaign despite facing a narrow, if not impossible, path to the nomination.
In order to secure as much support as possible, her campaign has made a direct appeal to independent voters and the minority of her own party opposed to front-runner Donald Trump. A number of political activist groups have called on Democrats to vote for her, including in the upcoming primary election in her home state of South Carolina.
According to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had been her rival in the primary race until suspending his campaign and endorsing Trump, Haley’s strategy is destined for failure.
During a recent interview with Fox News Channel host Brian Kilmeade, the governor responded to a clip in which Haley denounced Trump’s record.
“Everything he touches we lose,” she said.
DeSantis argued that the former South Carolina governor is hitching her political fortunes to a small minority incapable of delivering the votes she would need to pose a serious challenge to Trump.
Describing four-fifths of the GOP as “conservative, populist voters,” he said that Haley has been “really playing to the 20% who are more of McCain, Romney Republicans.”
He acknowledged that the party should be a “big tent” and offer a place for Americans with differing points of view, but predicted that Haley’s approach will backfire.
“We need everyone in, but once you go in that direction, you really poison the well with the vast majority of Republican primary voters,” he said.
DeSantis used the Iowa caucuses as an example to support his argument, asserting that thousands of Democrats switched their affiliation to Republican on the night of the caucus in order to artificially inflate Haley’s vote count.
“I was at a couple of these caucus sites,” he said. “These were very liberal Democrats. They had N-95 masks on. They had shirts that had liberal slogans on and that was a core part of her strategy was to appeal to those people.”
Despite her appeal to anti-Trump voters and her close ties to the state, Haley is trailing Trump by dozens of points in the polls.
New CBS poll of South Carolina: Trump 65 Haley 30. https://t.co/7UDx68JIL3 pic.twitter.com/nNnjh6V22H
— Byron York (@ByronYork) February 13, 2024
As Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said earlier this month: “She has no path to the nomination no matter how many Democrats she attempts to win over.”