Trump and Biden to duel for Haley votes as she exits race
Former UN ambassador pulls out after Super Tuesday defeat without endorsing her former boss
JOE BIDEN pitched for Nikki Haley’s supporters to defect to the Democrats yesterday after she withdrew from the Republican primary race and refused to endorse Donald Trump.
After losing all but one of the 15 Super Tuesday primary states, Ms Haley quoted Margaret Thatcher as she urged her supporters: “Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.”
The US president immediately issued a direct appeal to moderate Republicans to abandon the party in November’s presidential election, emphasising his “common ground” with Haley voters on support for Nato and the rule of law.
“Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Nikki Haley’s supporters. I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign,” he said.
“On the fundamental issues of preserving American democracy, on standing up for the rule of law, on treating each other with decency and dignity and respect, on preserving Nato and standing up to America’s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground.”
Ms Haley’s exit from the race triggers a battle for independent voters and moderate Republicans – many of whom have expressed concerns about Mr Trump’s criminal indictments.
The former South Carolina governor said yesterday that she had “no regrets” about running for the White House and would “not stop using my voice for the things I believe in”, abandoning a pledge that she would support the eventual Republican nominee.
“I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee,” she said.
“But on this question, as she did on so many others, Margaret Thatcher provided some good advice when she said, ‘Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind’.”
She added: “It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that.
“At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing.”
Ms Haley won just one state, Vermont, in Tuesday’s elections as Mr Trump swept to victory across the US, including in the two largest primary states of California and Texas.
In the Democratic primaries, Mr
‘We have a great Republican Party with tremendous talent and we want to have unity’
Biden won every vote apart from a primary in the territory of American Samoa, where he drew with Jason Palmer, a little-known entrepreneur.
Their wins set up the 2024 race as a repeat of the last election, where Mr Biden took a narrow victory over Mr Trump in several key swing states.
In his own speech from his Mar-alago resort on Tuesday night, Mr Trump attempted to unite the Republican Party behind him after a bitter primary campaign against Ms Haley, whom he has nicknamed “bird brain”.
He said: “We have a great Republican Party with tremendous talent and we want to have unity, and we’re going to have unity and it’s going to happen very quickly.”
Yesterday morning, he received the endorsement of Mitch Mcconnell, the veteran Republican leader in the Senate who has previously blamed him for the Jan 6 Capitol riots.
In a post on Truth Social as Ms Haley prepared to stand down, the former president attacked her again, writing that she had been “trounced” in the primaries and claiming that “much of her money came from radical Left Democrats”.
Ms Haley’s press secretary emphasised the difference between Mr Biden and Mr Trump’s response to her withdrawal, describing it as a “tale of two statements” as they fight for her supporters.
Exit polls from Tuesday’s primaries show that many Republicans would be concerned about casting their vote for Mr Trump if he is convicted in one of the four criminal cases against him before election day.
In North Carolina, a key battleground state, 32 per cent of Republican primary voters said they did not believe that Mr Trump would be fit to be president if he is convicted of a crime before polling day.
The former president is facing four criminal trials on a range of charges – the first of which is set to begin in New York on March 25. He denies all charges and has appealed many of them in the courts.
Mr Biden’s campaign team has launched a new “trigger Trump” strategy to taunt the former president in the hope he will “go haywire in public” and encourage moderate Republicans to defect to the Democrats, according to Axios.
A separate report in the New York Times said aides intend to “let Joe be Joe” and make more direct appeals to voters in media appearances and campaign events.
However, the attempt to poach moderates and independents comes as Mr Biden faces opposition from much of his core voter base, who have concerns about his support for Israel’s military action in Gaza.
The Democratic primaries saw the continuation of a trend of protest votes against Mr Biden over the war in the Middle East, after Asian-americans launched a campaign against him in Michigan last week.
On Tuesday, a significant minority of voters in Minnesota, North Carolina and Massachusetts marked themselves as “unaffiliated” to a candidate.
Mr Biden is currently trailing Mr Trump in the six battleground states that are expected to decide the next election, with concerns about Mr Biden’s age and the impact of inflation harming his re-election bid.
Mr Trump has also taken a narrow lead among Latino voters, who typically vote Democrat and make up a substantial voting bloc in some states.
Mr Biden will today deliver his State of the Union address from Congress. He is expected to focus on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the threat of China and Republican attempts to restrict access to abortion.