Nikki Haley says she's 'hitting it hard' on the campaign trail weeks before Iowa and New Hampshire
GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley says she should have 'stated the obvious' when it comes to her 'Civil War' comments, but 'that nobody on the ground is talking about it'.
FIRST ON FOX – Americans for Prosperity Action, the political wing of the influential and deep-pocketed fiscally conservative network founded by the billionaire Koch Brothers, is launching a new phase in its large ad and grassroots effort on behalf of Nikki Haley's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
The ad blitz, which was shared first with Fox News on Friday, includes mailers, digital ads and connected TV spots that will run starting this week in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The campaign will also hit Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia, four of the 15 states that hold presidential nominating contests on March 5, which is known as Super Tuesday.
AFP Action, which pledged to spend tens of millions of dollars to help push the Republican Party past former President Donald Trump as it endorsed Haley in late November, says it's putting an initial $27 million behind this new wave in their ongoing campaign.
"Poll after poll shows that Trump is the weakest candidate against Joe Biden," the narrator in the group's ad emphasizes.
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A slew of recent polls of the 2024 presidential election indicate Haley topping President Biden by larger margins than Trump does in hypothetical general election matchups.
"Nikki Haley crushes Biden by double digits. She even beats him in the swing states that Trump lost in 2020. It’s clear. Nikki Haley would be the strongest candidate to stop Biden and help elect Republicans across the country," the narrator adds. "She’s a proven conservative fighter. With the criminal trials for President Trump and the liberal media out to get him, our country can’t risk four more years of Biden and Harris."
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Trump remains the commanding frontrunner for the Republican nomination as he makes his third straight White House run.
Trump's lead expanded last spring and summer as he made history as the first former or current president in American history to be indicted for a crime. Trump's four indictments – including in federal court in Washington, D.C., and in Fulton County court in Georgia on charges he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss – have only fueled his support among Republican voters.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event on Dec. 19, 2023, in Waterloo, Iowa. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
He holds a massive lead over Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in national polling, and in the latest surveys in Iowa, whose Jan. 15 caucuses kick off the GOP presidential nominating calendar.
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But Haley, the former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, has enjoyed plenty of momentum in recent months. She has caught up to DeSantis in national surveys and in the latest Iowa polls, and surpassed him in New Hampshire and has narrowed the gap with Trump in the Granite State, which holds its primary eight days after the caucuses.
The AFP Action endorsement instantly gave Haley, who until recent weeks had been running a lean campaign, the grassroots outreach and organizational strength that DeSantis has enjoyed, due to the major assist from the DeSantis-aligned super PAC Never Back Down.
Nikki Haley speaks at a town hall in Rye, New Hampshire, on Jan. 2, 2023. (Fox News - Paul Steinhauser)
In the 2022 midterm election cycle, AFP Action knocked on roughly 7 million doors, made 2 million calls, and sent out nearly 100 million pieces of mail on behalf of candidates it was backing.
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The electability argument made by AFP Action in their new blitz mirrors what Haley has repeated showcased on the campaign trail and what the super PAC supporting her has spotlighted in ads. As part of her stump speech, Haley highlights how polls suggest she beats Biden more convincingly that Trump would.
"Nikki Haley is by far the strongest candidate Republicans could run against Joe Biden, and no one else is even close. Nikki Haley would boost Republicans up and down the ballot," AFP Action director Nathan Nascimento told Fox News in a statement.
But Trump's political orbit discounts the effort.
"Americans for Prosperity has already lit millions of dollars on fire this primary only to watch President Donald Trump's lead grow. No amount of money can break the bond President Trump has with voters. He kept his promises," Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for the Trump-aligned super PAC Make America Great Again Inc MAGA Inc., said following AFP Action's endorsement of Haley.
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