An endorsement by a powerful conservative political advocacy group of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has created an opening for the 2024 candidate to elevate her position as she tries to become the leading Trump alternative in the Republican presidential primary.
The endorsement, which Americans for Prosperity Action unveiled on Tuesday, had a ripple effect, creating fresh buzz around her campaign among donors and touching Haley’s chief rivals – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump, whose respective campaigns and super PACs churned out statements downplaying the support and throwing potshots at each other. In a fundraising solicitation, the Trump campaign alluded to the Koch network as “a corrupt network of globalist RINO donors” and “backstabbers.”
The endorsement from the network associated with billionaire Charles Koch is not a game ender in the primary. Endorsements and the monetary support that sometimes comes with them don’t necessarily translate to raw voter support in any election. And Trump remains the far and away front-runner in early state and national polling of the Republican primary. But for Haley, a candidate who started out in the primary in the shadow of both DeSantis and Trump, the endorsement was the latest sign of growing support for her presidential campaign.
At a campaign stop Tuesday night in Derry, New Hampshire, Haley did not explicitly mention the endorsement, but she urged Republicans to turn the page from Trump if the party hopes to start winning national elections again.
“We should want to win the majority of Americans,” Haley said, “but the only way we’re going to do that is if we leave the negativity and the baggage behind and we go towards a new generational leader.”
Haley mentioned Trump only in the closing moments of her remarks, but when she said, “chaos…
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