Nikki Haley signaled she might decline to endorse Donald Trump in an election rematch with President Joe Biden, saying she no longer considers herself bound by a promise to the Republican National Committee to support the party's nominee in 2024. “I think I'll take the decision.” decision I want to make,” Haley said in an interview with NBC's Meet the Press that will air Sunday. “But that's not something I'm thinking about.”
Haley said that “the RNC is no longer the same RNC,” her latest attack on the organization since Trump said he would nominate his daughter-in-law Lara Trump to co-lead it with Michael Whatley, the North Carolina state party chair. who has supported Trump's false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election.
Haley continues to attack the GOP front-runner on the eve of Super Tuesday on March 5, when more than a dozen states hold elections for the presidential nomination. Trump has swept the first seven racesincluding three on Saturday, and leads Haley by 64 percentage points in the nomination race, according to a RealClearPolitics average of national polls.
Haley has said she will stay in the race at least until Super Tuesday. She has been urging voters to reject Trump's “chaos” and lamenting her party's move away from small government and free markets at recent campaign rallies.
At NBC, Haley left open the possibility of staying in office until the Republican convention in July, saying that both donations and votes will determine whether “she stays competitive.”
“If people want to see me move forward, they will show it,” he said. “They will demonstrate it in their votes. They will demonstrate it in their donations.”
Some donors, including billionaire Ken Griffin and the Charles Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity Action, have abandoned their support for Haley. She earned endorsements from Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins on Friday, the first from sitting U.S. senators.
Haley has spoken out against using any RNC money to pay for Trump's legal defenses, saying it would turn the RNC into “his legal slush fund.” The RNC raised $87 million in 2023 and ended the year with $8 million in cash on hand, far less than the Democratic National Committee's $120 million in fundraising and $20 million on hand.
