What a jackass. First, he pisses off women everywhere by the repeal of R V W and selecting Vance, then he doesn't allow Haley to assist him (she's offered).
BTW: Yes Vance is smart, capable, articulate, a master debater and calling working women "childless cat ladies" is no bueno.
Nikki Haley Has Made Her Peace With Donald Trump. Not All of Her Supporters Have.
Former South Carolina governor has said she would campaign with the former president, but that offer hasn’t been accepted
By John McCormick, WSJ
Oct. 30, 2024 5:00 am ET
Nikki Haley has made clear she plans to vote for Donald Trump, even after a combative Republican presidential primary where she was the last major challenger left sparring with him. But the former South Carolina governor’s pitch for unity these days isn’t for everyone.
The former president hasn’t campaigned with Haley, despite her offering dates when she was available. Trump also has continued to be dismissive of her White House run, breaking from the tradition of trying to win over supporters of primary opponents. Haley’s strongest backing came from suburban areas where presidential elections are often decided, meaning suburbanites are especially valuable voters.
Bernard McGorrey, a 64-year-old information-technology worker who lives in suburban Philadelphia, said he was unlikely to vote for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, but also hesitant to support Trump, after backing him in 2016 but not 2020. “I may write her name in,” the Republican said of Haley, whom he backed in his state’s primary in April.
Harris meanwhile is aggressively courting Haley supporters, but where they land remains a significant question in an election that is shaping up to be tight. There is little public polling to suggest what they will do after having expressed opposition to Trump in the primary.
Nikki Haley was the last major Republican candidate left against former President Donald Trump in the Republican primary. Photo: Abbie Parr/Associated Press
A political-action committee called PivotPAC, which is financing what it calls Haley Voters for Harris, says it is spending about $4 million on digital ads to encourage suburban Republicans and independents in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to support Harris. Haley sent a cease-and-desist letter to the group, demanding her name not be used; it disputed the legal claim and has continued to do so.
Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said Trump had been “endorsed by many respected leaders from Nikki Haley to RFK Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard” and his effort welcomes “anyone who wants to secure our border, restore law and order, and end inflation.”
Instead of appearing with Trump, Haley is scheduled Wednesday to hit the campaign trail in Pennsylvania to support Republican David McCormick in his challenge of Democratic Sen. Bob Casey. It will be her first real campaigning since dropping out of the primary. More than 16% of GOP voters in the state picked Haley in April—more than a month after she dropped out of the race. That was almost 160,000 people, or roughly double the vote margin Joe Biden secured in winning the state in the 2020 presidential election.
Haley pleaded for Trump to make a greater effort to reach out to moderates and independents when she exited the primary—something he hasn’t done—and called for party unity in her speech to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. She has helped Trump with fundraising and recorded phone messages to encourage people to vote for him.
On Tuesday evening, Haley suggested Trump’s campaign needed to do a better job of reaching out to women, who polls show are heavily supporting Harris, as she highlighted the former president’s controversial rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York.
“This bromance and this masculinity stuff, I mean, it borders on edgy to the point that it’s going to make women uncomfortable,” she said on Fox News. “You had speakers at Madison Square Garden referring to her [Harris] and her pimps. That is not the way to win women. That is not the way to win people who are concerned about Trump’s style.”
Haley said she had last spoken with Trump in June and she wasn’t bothered “at all” that she hadn’t been more extensively deployed by his campaign.
Her support for the former president has drawn criticism from anti-Trump Republicans, including former Rep. Liz Cheney, who has endorsed Harris and has been campaigning with her. “I can’t understand her position on this in any kind of a principled way,” Cheney told ABC News in September, noting that Haley assailed a second Trump term during the primary.
Haley has responded to such criticism by saying she is weighing policy more heavily than personality in voting for Trump. She has made that case on a new weekly show she is hosting on SiriusXM that runs through the presidential inauguration in mid-January.
“I have not forgotten what he said about me,” she said on the show in September. “I’ve not forgotten what he said about my husband or his, you know, deployment time or his military service. I haven’t forgotten about his or his campaign’s tactics from, you know, putting a birdcage outside our hotel room to calling me ‘bird brain.’”
Her references recalled a race between the two that turned caustic in its final weeks. Haley at the time cited Trump’s history of hurting the party in general elections, his criminal indictments and age, while Trump called her “bird brain” and raised questions about her husband’s absence from the campaign trail while he was serving in the military in Africa.
Annie Lewis, a 41-year-old stay-at-home mother of six children in suburban Phoenix, cast her first-ever Democratic vote in the 2016 presidential election. She has long been wary of Trump, voted for Haley in the primary and now plans to vote for Harris.
“It has never been an option for me to have someone with such immoral standards be the top executive of our country,” said Lewis, who now identifies as an independent. “He’s turned Americans into this really divisive culture.”
Lewis said she was “super disappointed” that Haley endorsed Trump. She is volunteering as part of an effort in Arizona to encourage Republicans and Haley supporters to vote for Harris, as is being done in other battleground states.
Matthew McCaffery, 43, a suburban Philadelphia resident who works in risk management for a grocery chain, said he planned to vote for Harris and is encouraging other Republicans to do so. He is a lifelong Republican who parted ways with the GOP when Trump came on the scene in 2016.
McCaffery backed Haley in his state’s primary. He said Trump “wants to stoke the flames of division and culture wars” and doesn’t have “a lot of substance.”
While she is not in one of the seven top battleground states, Haley primary supporter Kathy Holland said she hoped Haley didn’t end up campaigning with Trump.
“The party of my whole life has been taken from me and I’m angry,” said Holland, 76, a retired flooring-business owner from Sandown, N.H., who once considered herself a lifelong Republican. “Both choices are pretty sad. I’m not afraid of Kamala Harris, but I am afraid of Trump.”
Write to John McCormick at mccormick.john@wsj.com
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