Back in the spring, the Koch network began running ads across Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — the first three states on the GOP’s presidential primary calendar — focusing on questions about Trump’s electability in next fall’s general election against Biden. And still, Trump remains the overwhelming front-runner in the race.
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Seidel said on Tuesday that Americans for Prosperity would immediately begin refocusing its efforts on boosting Haley’s primary and general election campaigns with strategic advertising investments, mailers and voter contacts through the group’s network of thousands of conservative activists, which has spent recent months collecting information from Republican primary voters to determine the most effective arguments against Trump.
At the same time, Seidel said that her organisation would focus on persuading reliable general election voters, who typically don’t vote in primaries, to show up for Haley in this year’s fast-approaching nomination contests.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung dismissed Americans for Prosperity as “the political arm of the China-first, America-last movement”.
“No amount of shady money from George Soros, Democrats and Never-Trump RINOs in partnership with endless-war swamp creatures in Washington will stop the MAGA movement or President Trump from being the Republican nominee and defeating Crooked Joe Biden,” Cheung wrote in a statement responding to the Haley endorsement.
Then US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley with Donald Trump in the White House in 2018.Credit: AP
News of the endorsement Tuesday quickly rippled across the political world.
Speaking in Washington, Utah Senator Mitt Romney predicted it would be a “huge boost” to Haley’s campaign.
Romney, a vocal Trump critic, said Haley has proved naysayers wrong before “and she’s doing it again.” He added: “I think it’s a huge boost for her campaign and may create the kind of momentum she needs.”
The DeSantis camp was not pleased.
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In a statement, DeSantis spokesperson Andrew Romeo likened the Koch endorsement to a contribution to the Trump campaign.
“Congratulations to Donald Trump on securing the Koch endorsement. Like clockwork, the pro-open borders, pro-jail break bill establishment is lining up behind a moderate who has no mathematical pathway of defeating the former president,” Romeo wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Every dollar spent on Nikki Haley’s candidacy should be reported as an in-kind to the Trump campaign.”
Yet the Koch network is convinced that Haley is better positioned to defeat Trump — and Biden — than DeSantis.
In a polling memo, senior adviser Michael Palmer highlighted Haley’s “sustained momentum in recent months,” while noting that many primary voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are only just beginning to pay close attention to the contest.
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