Haley Voters for Harris launched a new campaign to target over 77,000 Nikki Haley voters in Wisconsin to encourage them to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November’s presidential election, drawing the ire of the former Republican presidential candidate who has issued a cease-and-desist letter.
Former U.N. Ambassador Haley told Fox News Digital in a statement, “Kamala Harris and I are total opposites on every issue. Any attempt to use my name to support her or her agenda is deceptive and wrong. I support Donald Trump because he understands we need to make America strong, safe, and prosperous.”
A law firm representing Haley’s presidential campaign sent the Haley Voters for Harris PAC a letter imploring the group to refrain from using Haley’s name to suggest she supports Harris for president.
Over 4.4 million people voted for Nikki Haley for president in the 2024 primary, according to the Haley Voters for Harris website. If just enough of these GOP primary voters turn to Harris, she could win the presidency. Craig Snyder, director of Haley Voters for Harris and former chief of staff to the late Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, believes Haley voters could play a pivotal role in battleground states.
“In such a closely contested place as Wisconsin, this group of voters, who have already clearly expressed their disapproval for Trump, can easily decide the race if even any significant portion of them join the coalition now behind the vice president – a coalition spanning the entire American political spectrum, from Dick Cheney to Bernie Sanders,” Snyder told Fox News Digital.
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Haley, a former governor of South Carolina who served as United Nations ambassador under President Trump, received 76,841 votes after she had already dropped out of the race in Wisconsin’s April GOP primary. Although Haley was trounced by the former president, who won over 400,000 more votes, Haley’s voters could be the key to swinging the election in Wisconsin.
President Biden narrowly won Wisconsin in 2020, winning 49.45% to 48.83%, a margin of only 0.62 percentage points. Biden received 1,630,673 votes compared to Trump’s 1,610,065, a difference of just over 20,000. In 2016, Trump won by a razor-thin margin with 23,000 more votes than Hillary Clinton.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks during the Ketagalan Forum on Indo-Pacific Security, in Taipei, Taiwan, on Aug. 21, 2024. (Daniel Ceng/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Haley’s voters in the primary were made up mostly of college-educated and independent-minded Republicans. Haley Voters for Harris will target these mostly center-right and moderate voters in the critical swing states, including Wisconsin, through social media and direct voter outreach.
The group will specifically be looking to educate these voters on what Snyder calls Harris’ centrist record, focusing on her years as a “no-nonsense prosecutor” who guided the Biden administration toward the center on issues ranging from the executive order ending the abuse of the asylum system, to record-setting oil production drilling permits, to federal support for hiring 100,000 additional police officers.
“We will be communicating directly with Haley voters and the other moderates in Wisconsin, through digital advertising, texting and direct mail, and while Gov. Haley herself has made the decision to support Trump, for whatever personal reasons, these independent-minded voters will decide for themselves what’s better for our country,” Snyder said.
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After dropping out of the GOP race in April, Haley eventually said she would vote for Trump, completing the Republican Party’s consolidation around the former president as the nominee. Haley formally endorsed Trump in a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, saying he has her “strong support” and that “you don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him.”
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on Labor Day at Northwestern High School in Detroit, Michigan, on Sept. 2, 2024. (Sarah Rice for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
William Howell, professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, told Fox News Digital that voters who turned to Haley in the primaries did so not because they were enthusiastic about her candidacy, but because they were dismayed by the direction of the Republican Party.
“It’s possible, then, that their votes are still up for grabs,” Howell said.
Howell thinks if Haley Voters for Harris puts in the work, they can have a real impact.
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“You don’t need to change many minds in order to have an outsized influence on this election – particularly if you can target the small segment of the population that remains undecided in one of the handful of competitive states. Haley voters in Wisconsin may be exactly that.”
Prior to President Biden’s disastrous debate performance on June 27, which ultimately drove him to withdraw from the presidential race, Snyder led the Haley Voters for Biden campaign, and said in a July press statement that “many of us strongly believed that the country needed to move on from Donald Trump.”
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A CNN poll conducted by SSRS from Aug. 23-29 had Harris with a 50% to 44% lead over Trump. Other recent polling from Wisconsin shows a tighter race and both Harris and Trump will need to win Wisconsin if they hope to win the White House.