COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Nikki Haley is meeting next week with donors who supported her now-abandoned Republican presidential campaign, a reentry into public life that comes as the former South Carolina governor keeps drawing notable support in some state primaries despite Donald Trump’s status as the presumptive nominee.
Haley will appear at events on Monday and Tuesday with about 100 donors in Charleston, according to a person with knowledge of the plans. The gathering, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is intended as a “thank you” to Haley’s supporters.
Haley is not expected to endorse Trump at that time or ask her donors to back any other candidates, according to the person, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the meetings and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Haley’s ability to win a significant share of the vote in some primaries where her name still appears on ballots showcases the division among Republicans as Trump marches toward a general election rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.
Despite exiting the race after a near-rout by Trump across the Super Tuesday contests in early March, Haley grabbed more than 21% of the votes in Indiana’s primary Tuesday. Two weeks ago, in Pennsylvania, she received nearly 17% of the primary vote. She earned similar support in Arizona just weeks after leaving the race.
Before she dropped out, Haley won nearly 27% of the votes in Michigan. She received 13% of the Georgia GOP vote shortly after her exit.
Trump, who won every Indiana county, brushed off Haley’s support in an interview Tuesday with WGAL-TV of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
“All of those people are going to come to me,” he said.
Indiana has an open primary system, which means any registered voter may participate in either party’s primary.
The Trump campaign claimed without evidence that Haley’s support came from Democrats, adding that he would carry Indiana in November as in 2016 and 2020, when he easily won the heavily Republican state.
Biden’s campaign attributed Haley’s Indiana showing to Trump’s trouble in suburbs and cited similar primary numbers in swing states such as Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The president has made an open appeal to Haley supporters to back him in November.
Haley, whose name is frequently mentioned already as a contender for the 2028 nomination, as well as potentially as a vice presidential pick for Trump, isn’t expected to talk about her own political future at the Charleston events, according to the person with knowledge of her plans.
Trump is racking up primary victories even as he has been spending much of his time recently in a New York courtroom facing state criminal charges involving hush money payments to a porn actor.
In her farewell speech a day after Trump’s big night, Haley declined to directly endorse him. She put the onus on Trump to win the support of the moderate Republicans and independent voters who had backed her.
“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,” she said. “At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people.”
Just before Super Tuesday, when the most delegates are up for grabs of any day in the primary calendar, Haley said she no longer felt bound by a pledge that required all GOP contenders to support the party’s eventual nominee in order to participate in the primary debates.
At least officially, Haley has moved on from this year’s campaign. The former U.N. ambassador under Trump recently announced she was joining the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank.
She has said little publicly but has continued to utilize her email outreach via her Stand for America political action committee, sending out updates on her Hudson appointment, as well as the return of her husband, Michael, from a South Carolina Army National Guard deployment that saw him stationed in Africa during a large portion of her primary campaign.
Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP
