Former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is urging her delegates to support former President Donald Trump in his attempt to retake the White House. Trump's former rival for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination announced on July 9 that she would send her 97 delegates over to Trump before the Republican National Convention gathers next week, Politico reported.
"The nominating convention is a time for Republican unity," said the former governor, adding that "we need a president who will hold our enemies to account, secure our border, cut our debt, and get our economy back on track."
Haley, who was not invited to the convention, urged her "delegates to support Donald Trump next week in Milwaukee," as "Joe Biden is not competent to serve a second term and Kamala Harris would be a disaster for America."
A spokesman told Politico that although she was not invited the former governor was "fine with that."
"Trump deserves the convention he wants. She’s made it clear she’s voting for him and wishes him the best," he continued.
The Republican National Convention will take place July 15-18 in Milwaukee.
Haley launched her presidential campaign in February 2023, following Trump's move for the 2024 GOP nomination in November 2022. The former South Carolina governor ran a combative race against the popular former president until she dropped out after March 6, when Trump won 14 out of the 15 states on Super Tuesday.
Even after Haley departed the race, she continued to grab around 20% of the vote from mainly Never-Trumper voters in the remaining Republican presidential primaries. However, in May, Haley announced that she would vote for Trump in her first public comments since the end of her 2024 campaign.
"Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I have made that clear many, many times. But Biden has been a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump," she said.
The former governor said that the country needed a “president who would support capitalism and freedom. A president who understands we need less debt, not more debt.” She added that while her former rival for the nomination “had not been perfect on these policies,” he was preferable to President Joe Biden. She also urged Trump to “reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me and not assume that they’re just going to be with him.”
Following Haley’s endorsement in May, Trump hinted that she would be his "team in some form” while continuing to rule her out as his potential vice-presidential running mate.
Trump stated, "I appreciated what she said. You know, we had a nasty campaign, it was pretty nasty. But she’s a very capable person, and I’m sure she’s going to be on our team in some form, absolutely."
However, in a June 29 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Haley admitted that there was no talk of her having a role in the Trump campaign after what she described as a “good conversation” with the former president.
Haley described Biden's poor cognitive performance during the recent presidential debate, as "shocking, I think, for a lot of people."
“What we saw was that Trump was strong, but I don’t even think that mattered because Biden was so amazingly unfit," she said. "The way he lost his train of thought, the way he couldn’t grasp topics of what he needed to talk about.”
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