Nikki Haley Is Huddling With Donors and Won’t Endorse Donald Trump Yet

Nikki Haley is easing back into public life after dropping out of the Republican presidential race in early March, but has no immediate plans to endorse Donald Trump.

The former South Carolina governor is attending a retreat in Charleston, S.C., on Monday and Tuesday to thank about 100 of her biggest donors, a person close to Haley told The Wall Street Journal. She isn’t expected to discuss her political future or encourage them to give to other campaigns.

The person said there is no pending endorsement of Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee. The two didn’t speak when she got out of the race on March 6 and haven’t done so since, this person said.

Eric Tanenblatt, a longtime GOP fundraiser and strategist in Georgia who plans to attend the donor meeting, said he hopes the 52-year-old Haley runs for the presidency again.

“Sometimes it takes more than one run to secure the nomination. Look at John McCain and Mitt Romney,” he said, citing two past GOP nominees who took more than one try. “She created something of a movement and built a coalition of Republicans and independents and even some conservative Democrats.”

Tanenblatt said he could see Haley endorsing Trump, if he made a greater effort to reach out to her and her supporters. “It’s now up to President Trump to unite the Republican Party by demonstrating to Nikki supporters that they have a place under the tent,” he said.

A Trump campaign spokeswoman didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

Haley, Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations, was the first major candidate to challenge him for the nomination and the last to exit from the race.

Some senior members of her political and fundraising team will attend the meeting and are expected to review the decisions and efforts that led her campaign to outlast roughly a dozen other primary candidates. Her team is expected to share that Haley’s campaign and allied groups raised $162 million from more than 287,000 donors.

Even after suspending her campaign, she has continued to receive support in Republican primaries. On Tuesday in Indiana, Haley got close to 22% of the vote, highlighting a vulnerability for Trump among critical suburban voters.

“That’s incredible, considering she never campaigned there,” said Bill Strong, a Floridian former international investment banker and longtime Republican fundraiser who supported Haley and plans to attend the donor meeting.

Haley scored her biggest Indiana vote shares in urban and suburban areas, as well as in the county that is home to Purdue University. In Marion County, which includes the state capital of Indianapolis, she received 35% of the vote, according to the Associated Press.

Indiana is an open primary state, meaning any voter can participate regardless of party affiliation, so a sizable share of her support almost certainly came from Democrats and independents. While the state isn’t one of the roughly half dozen expected to decide the presidency, the results are the latest example of how Haley voters could play a role in November in swing-state contests that could be decided by razor-thin margins.

President Biden’s campaign has repeatedly reached out to Haley supporters, even running ads that highlight Trump’s repeated insults of her as well as his suggestions that he doesn’t need votes from her supporters.

Haley has made no public comments about her political future since leaving the race. If Trump fails to win in November, strategists have said she might be better positioned for a second presidential bid in 2028.

While Trump once had a good working relationship with Haley and described her as “fantastic,” their commentary on each other turned especially caustic in the first two months of this year. Haley routinely cited Trump’s history of hurting the party in general elections and his criminal indictments, among other issues, while Trump called her “Birdbrain” and raised questions about the absence of her husband from the campaign trail while he was serving in the military in Africa.

Her husband returned from his yearlong deployment last month. The person close to her said she is now focusing her time on helping her team with their next career moves, thanking donors and supporters, and spending time with family. She has taken up jogging again.

Haley has also joined the Hudson Institute in Washington, although she will continue to live in her native state. She is expected to make public appearances for the think tank and help craft and advance foreign-policy positions.

Some Haley supporters say they are struggling to pick between Biden and Trump.

Kathy Holland, a 75-year-old retired retail flooring store owner from Sandown, N.H., voted for Haley in her state’s primary. While she considers Biden ineffective in his first term, she can’t bring herself to back Trump either.

“I’m in limbo,” said Holland, who added that she voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. “In this huge country, it’s sad that we can’t—and haven’t—done better.”

Write to John McCormick at [email protected]