Tim Scott endorses Donald Trump for Republican nomination, in blow to Nikki Haley
Tim Scott’s backing of Donald Trump is a blow to Nikki Haley in her bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
South Carolina senator Tim Scott is set to endorse Donald Trump, a blow to Nikki Haley in her bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
Senator Scott made the endorsement on Friday evening local time in a packed hotel ballroom in New Hampshire’s capital city.
The move comes days before the New Hampshire primary, set for Tuesday, in which Ms Haley, a former South Carolina governor, is attempting a long-shot effort to overtake Mr Trump.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal backstage at the rally, Senator Scott explained his endorsement of Mr Trump by saying, “I think about the success we had working together.”
He cited legislation he worked on that included opportunity zones, a tax break meant to spur economic growth in distressed communities, which Mr Trump signed.
The former president, during his speech, praised Senator cott’s work on the legislation.
As for Ms Haley, who appointed him to the Senate in 2012, Senator Scott said, “She was a good governor, I think she has run a strong campaign.” But he said he had compared the two candidates and concluded that Mr Trump would be more effective.
Senator Scott declined to answer if he would accept an invitation to be Mr Trump’s running mate. “To go into any endorsements asking what’s in it for me is the wrong question,” Senator Scott said.
The endorsement also is symbolic of the difficulty Ms Haley faces in a party that appears to be coalescing behind the former president. The New York Times earlier reported Senator Scott’s plans and Ms Haley declined to answer shouted questions about the Scott endorsement while exiting a diner in Amherst, NH.
The endorsement leaves Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, as the only other significant candidate yet to endorse a rival after dropping out of this year’s primary contest. Mr Christie’s supporters have looked much like Ms Haley’s – political centrists looking to turn the page from Mr Trump – and his endorsement of Ms Haley, should it come, could give her a boost in New Hampshire.
Senator Scott’s endorsement also gives Mr Trump the backing of all three of the senior Republican officials in South Carolina, where the February 24 primary has the potential to provide a last stand for any of Mr Trump’s rivals to stop his momentum after he won Iowa’s caucuses this week with overwhelming support. Trump previously won the backing of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Governor Henry McMaster.
News of Senator Scott’s endorsement comes as the primary race in New Hampshire has turned more antagonistic ahead of Tuesday’s election, as Mr Trump and Ms Haley have begun trading personal insults and increasingly portraying the other as a losing proposition for the party.
The race here has essentially narrowed into a two-person contest, with a third candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, limiting his time in the state and focusing as much on South Carolina. The result in New Hampshire will give signal to whether Ms Haley, after a third-place showing in Iowa, has the voter and donor support to continue.
“If you want a nominee who is endorsed by all of the RINOs, globalists, never-Trumpers and crooked Joe Biden’s biggest donors … If you like all of those things, including the RINOs, then she’s your candidate,” Mr Trump said Wednesday night at a campaign event in Portsmouth, N.H., employing the shorthand for Republicans in Name Only, or those insufficiently committed to GOP principles.
Ms Haley, speaking to reporters Thursday, roped together the names of President Biden and his predecessor in arguing that Americans were tired of both of them.
“The majority of Americans have a disapproval of Biden and Trump,” she said. “You look at Biden and Trump, both put us trillions of dollars in debt that our kids are never going to forgive them for. Both Biden and Trump are caught up in investigations instead of focusing on the wars that are happening in the world.”
Appearing on Fox News Channel on Thursday night, Mr Trump said Ms Haley “has no chance. She’s got no way, MAGA is not going to be with her.”
Ms Haley, for her part, said on CNN of Mr Trump’s name-calling: “That’s what he does when he feels threatened. That’s what he does when he feels insecure.”
The strategy from Mr Trump and his allies has been to assert that Ms Haley is too liberal to merit support from conservatives but at the same time too close to Mr Trump to merit support from the state’s plentiful independents, who can vote in the GOP primary.
While Mr Trump paints Ms Haley as disloyal to him and his movement, a super PAC backing the former president has sent a mailer to voters saying that Ms Haley “is a big supporter of Trump’s MAGA agenda,” an apparent attempt to dissuade centrist voters from backing her.
If Mr Trump can turn in a dominating performance in New Hampshire, it will likely be hard for Ms Haley to rebound in South Carolina. Even if Haley comes out of New Hampshire strong, she is the underdog back home and trails significantly as of now in polling.
Ms Haley and her allies argue that Trump is a political liability for the Republican Party and was ineffective in office, presiding over rising debt and a failure to secure the US-Mexico border.
“The reality is, who lost the House for us? Who lost the Senate? Who lost the White House? Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump,” Ms Haley said on Thursday. Republicans lost the House of Representatives in 2018, while Mr Trump was in office, and lost control of the Senate in 2020, the year Trump lost his bid for re-election.
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, in a new ad funded by a pro-Haley super PAC, cautions that Mr Trump is “surrounded by chaos and drama” while Ms Haley “is honest and hopeful.”
“Now, we have a chance to reset the election for the entire country,” Mr Sununu says, in an unstated acknowledgment of Mr Trump’s dominant showing in Iowa’s caucuses this week, where he won more than half the vote and Ms Haley placed third.
On social media, Mr Trump’s criticism has taken a more personal turn recently, reminding supporters of Ms Haley’s Indian heritage by using the first name given to her by her immigrant parents.
“Anyone listening to Nikki ‘Nimrada’ Haley’s wacked out speech last night would think that she won the Iowa primary. She didn’t,” he wrote Tuesday in an online post.
Ms Haley’s first name is most commonly spelled as Nimarata. Nikki is her legal middle name. Trump has similarly made a point over the years of highlighting his White House predecessor’s full name – Barack Hussein Obama – before jeering audiences.
Last week, Mr Trump reposted a false claim from a conservative website that Ms Haley’s heritage disqualifies her under the Constitution from holding the presidency. The assertion was reminiscent of Mr Trump’s efforts during Mr Obama’s time in office to raise questions about his birthplace and eligibility for office.
Ms Haley will have some air cover in New Hampshire to help her in the home stretch. The super PAC backing her candidacy, SFA Fund Inc., is currently booked to be the biggest spender in the state from Friday through Tuesday.
It has reservations for $US1.3 million in ads in New Hampshire, followed on the GOP side by the super PAC backing Trump, at about $US872,000.
Mr DeSantis, who placed a distant second in Iowa’s caucuses this week, is competing in New Hampshire but faces long odds there and is spending time in South Carolina, where he will be during much of the coming weekend.
Mr DeSantis is trailing badly in public opinion surveys in New Hampshire, drawing 5 per cent support in the Fivethirtyeight.com average of public polls. Trump has 47 per cent support in averaged polls, and Ms Haley is at 34 per cent but rising significantly since the start of the year.
Ms Haley on Thursday made several campaign stops in the Manchester area with Sununu.
On Friday evening, she was set to hold a rally in Manchester. Trump has events scheduled on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, including a rally in Manchester on Saturday. Mr DeSantis had several events in the state on Friday before he heads to South Carolina.
The Wall Street Journal
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