In the Republican primaries, former candidate Nikki Haley became the only alternative with a chance of unseating Donald Trump. She said of the magnate that he was not qualified for the position, that his politics are synonymous with “chaos” and that he is “more unhinged than ever.” After accumulating resounding defeats in the first electoral events of the year, on the morning after the decisive date of Super Tuesday he announced that he was abandoning the electoral race and said that he was not going to campaign for the magnate, that he should win the support of his followers if I wanted to return to the White House. After months of silence, yesterday she announced that she will vote for Trump in November.
“As a voter, my priority is to elect a president who has our allies’ backs and holds our enemies accountable, who secures the border, without any more excuses. A president who supports capitalism and freedom, a president who understands that we need less debt, not more,” he responded to the direct question, in the conservative think tank Hudson Institute, of whether he prefers Trump or Biden to lead the country. The Republican “has not been perfect in these policies, as I have made clear on many occasions. But Biden has been a catastrophe. “So I’ll vote for Trump,” he said.
“That said… I stand by what I said in my resignation speech: Trump would be smart if he reached out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me and not assume that they are simply going to be with him,” he added, seconded for the applause of the public.
The former governor of South Carolina was also critical of Trump in the 2016 elections and changed her speech when it was confirmed that he would be the candidate. Then, Trump offered her the position of US ambassador to the UN, which she accepted despite her differences with the magnate. In recent weeks, she has been strongly sounded as a possible running mate for Trump in the elections, although the Republican took it upon himself to deny it through his social network, Truth Social, saying that “she is not being considered as my vice president.”
Haley, who embodies the conservative spirit of the most traditional Republicans, sold herself during the primaries as the moderate alternative to the ultra-conservative, trying to win the vote of centrists and independents. Although he reached higher percentages than predicted by the polls (between 30% and 40% in several states), he only managed to defeat Trump in the small liberal state of Vermont, where he took 50% of the votes against the 46% of the tycoon.
After her withdrawal, and despite the fact that Trump has already achieved enough delegates to mathematically secure his nomination at the Republican convention (to be held in July), Haley has continued to receive votes in the primaries of the states in which she was registered. For example, last week she took 21.8% of the vote in Maryland and 18.2% in Nebraska. And in the key states of Arizona and Pennsylvania, she won 18% and 16%, respectively.
In her participation in the Hudson Institute think tank colloquium, Haley harshly criticized Biden, especially his foreign policy. She reproached him for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in April 2021, three months after assuming the presidency, which gave way to the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban. And he called his decision to withhold a shipment of bombs to Israel in the face of the imminent attack on Rafah “senseless,” which “validates the totally false and destructive narrative that Israel is acting unfairly in defending itself.”
The communications director of the Biden campaign, Michael Tyler, has responded to Haley’s words, ensuring that “nothing has changed for the millions of Republican voters who continue to vote against Donald Trump in the primaries and who care deeply about the future.” of our democracy, for standing firm with our allies in the face of foreign adversaries, and for working together to achieve things for the American people, while rejecting the chaos, division, and violence that Donald Trump embodies.”
