Big donors opt to back Nikki Haley as an alternative to Donald Trump in the Republican Party

Donald Trump is the clear favorite among the most loyal Republican voters. Conservative groups, however, fear that he may well end up scaring away moderate and independent voters in the November 2024 presidential election, handing incumbent President Joe Biden the keys to a second term in the White House. The big donors first placed their bets on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as an alternative to Trump. However, as his campaign has deflated, the figure of Nikki Haley has emerged. The former governor of South Carolina and a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations received the endorsement Tuesday of Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP Action), the powerful and influential conservative network founded by the billionaire Koch brothers.

AFP Action had until now refrained from participating in presidential campaigns, opting instead to focus on local or congressional elections, but believes it is time to turn the page in U.S. politics. “A significant majority of voters want someone new,” the organization notes. The network had already come out against Trump’s nomination, but has now opted to back one of his rivals in the final stretch leading to the Republican primaries. For Haley’s campaign, which has a smaller infrastructure than those of Trump or DeSantis, the new support may be key to establishing herself as an alternative to the former president.

The organization made its announcement through a message posted Tuesday on its website and signed by Emily Seidel, senior advisor to AFP Action: “American politics are in a downward spiral, with both parties reinforcing the bad behavior of the other. Republicans have been nominating bad candidates who are going against America’s core principles. And voters are rejecting them. Democrats see this as an opportunity and are responding with extreme policies that also cut against core American principles,” the statement read. Its conclusion is that “Donald Trump and Joe Biden will only further perpetuate the country’s downward spiral in politics.”

The organization explains that its approach from the beginning has been to support a candidate capable of “turning the page on Washington’s toxic culture – and of winning the election.” “Last night we concluded that analysis. That candidate is Nikki Haley,” Seidel argues on behalf of AFP Action, because she “offers America the opportunity to turn the page on the current political era, to win the Republican primary and defeat Joe Biden next November.”

Other significant conservative donors have also been displaying their support for Haley in recent weeks, in parallel with DeSantis’ campaign woes. Billionaire investor and philanthropist Stanley Druckenmiller, metal magnate Andy Sabin, and South Carolina businessman Chad Walldorf are among those who have announced their support for Haley. Solamere Capital founder Spencer Zwick, who led fundraising efforts for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, has joined Haley’s fundraising team. Billionaire fund manager Ken Griffin has also indicated he is considering donating to Haley’s campaign.

Favorite against Biden

AFP Action says its internal polls and the opinions gathered by its activists point to Haley as the best positioned candidate to defeat Trump in the Republican Party primaries. DeSantis has been falling in voting intention for a year, when he previously almost disputed Trump’s primacy within the party. Now, according to FiveThirtyEight’s aggregation of polls, the Florida governor has just 12.9% of support among Republican primary voters, while Haley has climbed steadily and is already nipping at his heels with 10%, thanks in part to her performance in the Republican primary debates.

Trump is still the overwhelming frontrunner on 59.8%, but the key takeaway is that polls point to the fact that Haley would be a much more formidable opponent for the former president. “Our internal polling consistently shows that Nikki Haley is by far the strongest candidate Republicans could put up against Joe Biden in a general election – winning every key battleground state and up nationally by nearly 10 points. While our polling shows Donald Trump loses to Joe Biden, Nikki Haley outperforms Trump by 8 to 14 points in the key Presidential battleground states,” says AFP Action, which claims to have been in contact with six million voters since February. The hopes of Biden, whose approval rating is very low, are largely based on mobilizing voters who do not want Trump to return to the White House.

The Koch brothers’ organization also points out that having Haley as a presidential candidate would help the rest of the GOP candidates in the Senate, House, and all other offices to be put to the vote in November. “Nikki Haley, at the top of the ticket, would boost candidates up and down the ballot, winning the key independent and moderate voters that Trump has no chance to win,” Seidel says.

Americans for Prosperity Action is the largest grassroots conservative political organization in the United States, with a presence in all 50 states. Its support means mobilizing thousands of activists on the ground, especially in early primary states, to knock on voters’ doors and urge them to support Haley. In addition, the organization will launch extensive mail, online, and television campaigns in support of Haley in the coming days. The Iowa caucuses will be held on January 15 and the New Hampshire primary on January 23.

The announcement was yet another setback for the DeSantis campaign, which has reacted angrily. DeSantis spokesman Andrew Romeo wrote on X: “Congratulations to Donald Trump on securing the Koch endorsement. Like clockwork, the pro-open borders, pro-jail break bill establishment is lining up behind a moderate who has no mathematical pathway of defeating the former president. Every dollar spent on Nikki Haley’s candidacy should be reported as an in-kind to the Trump campaign. No one has a stronger record of beating the establishment than Ron DeSantis, and this time will be no different.”

Haley, for her part, has celebrated the endorsement: “AFP Action’s members know that there is too much at stake in this election to sit on the sidelines,” she said in a statement. “This is a choice between freedom and socialism, individual liberty and big government, fiscal responsibility and spiraling debt. We have a country to save, and I’m grateful to have AFP Action by our side.”

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