When Nikki Haley finally dropped out of the Republican primary and still got some votes in subsequent primary contests, the Biden campaign thought they had an opportunity. From their point of view, a vote for Haley wasn't a vote for Trump and could be a vote for Biden.
Haley, for her part, didn't endorse Trump right away, and that might have given Biden some hope.
There was some speculation that Trump might have been considering her as his running mate, but he recently made it clear that she was not under consideration. As primaries continued to show that Haley supporters were still protesting with their votes, the Biden campaign may have been lulled into a false sense of hope. Now that impossible dream of thousands of Haley supporters voting for Biden and giving him a second term has been shattered.
This past week, Haley not only endorsed Trump, but Trump indicated that there will likely be a place for her in his next administration, clearly moving on from the primary rivalry they had.
“Well, I think she’s going be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts,” Trump told a local New York area cable station the day after her endorsement. "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."
These developments are a major blow to Biden's campaign. It was always a silly proposition that Haley voters would flock to Biden, but the Biden campaign pounced back in March when she dropped out and was reportedly confident that they'd be able to sway some of Haley's supporters to back Biden in November.
"Donald Trump made it clear he doesn't want Nikki Haley's supporters," Biden said at the time. "I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign."
Biden insisted that Haley supporters could find some common ground with Biden, which was a laugh. In 2020, he claimed he'd be a president for everybody and then governed as far left as Barack Obama.
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Meanwhile, through it all, polls continued to show Biden trailing both nationally and in battleground state match-ups, which was proof that Haley voters weren't tipping the scales to Biden. And even if they were among the "Undecided" voters in various polls, this reconciliation between the two is likely to bring those undecideds to Trump's column over the coming months.
And Trump has likely figured out that he needs Haley voters on his side. Despite the polls favoring him right now, as he said during his rally in the Bronx on Thursday, his victory needs to be "too big to rig."
I think he's right.
And as the New York Times notes, she not only brings voters with her but campaign dollars.
"Despite leaving the G.O.P. nominating contest more than two months ago, Ms. Haley has continued to draw significant numbers of voters in subsequent primaries, chipping away at critical support that Mr. Trump is likely to need in a close election against President Biden," the paper reported Friday. "In Wisconsin, she received more than 75,000 votes (nearly 13 percent of ballots cast) in this month’s Republican primary."
"And then there are Ms. Haley’s connections to donors," the Times continued. "In April, she was named the Walter P. Stern chairwoman at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank with a formidable list of high-dollar donors."
So this reconciliation is not only good news for Trump but devastating news for Biden, and this is hardly a time for him to get such bad news.
