The Battle for Haley Voters
These voters are not yet sold on either Biden or Trump.
It’s been two months since former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley dropped out of the Republican Party nominating contest, yet she continues to pull votes in state primaries despite no longer campaigning.
The big unanswered question remains: Will these Republican and independent Haley voters come home and support Trump this fall or will they switch to Biden, choose a third-party candidate, or decide not to vote?
A recent large sample poll of 4038 registered voters, conducted by The Liberal Patriot and Blueprint with YouGov, allows us to examine these Haley voters in more detail. For the purposes of this survey and analysis, we do not include any crossover Democrats who support or supported Haley; they are all either self-identified Republicans (79 percent) or independents (21 percent).
How are these Haley voters planning to vote? As the chart below shows, if the election were held today, roughly four in ten Haley voters (38 percent) would back Donald Trump in a two-way race, around one-fifth (19 percent) would back Joe Biden, and about one-quarter (24 percent) say they are not sure, with the remaining considering someone else or planning not to vote.
Examining a hypothetical three-way race, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. polls quite well with Haley voters, drawing almost one quarter of the Haley vote with Trump dropping to 31 percent and Biden declining to 12 percent, and more than three in ten not sure or considering someone else.
Although President Biden is performing solidly with Haley voters as a Democratic incumbent, he clearly has a long way to go to win over more of these potential swing voters. Consider this: nearly eight in ten Haley voters disapprove of the way Biden is handling his job as president with more than six in ten strongly disapproving. In comparison, half of Haley voters disapprove of the way Trump handled his job when he was president but only 25 percent strongly disapprove.
Likewise, as seen in the table below, Haley voters prefer Trump to Biden by double digits on nine of ten leadership dimensions tested in our “Patriot Index.” Among Haley voters, Biden only has a slight lead over Trump on “being culturally moderate and not extreme.”
While Biden trails Trump significantly on many personal indicators, there are openings for him on policy grounds according to this survey. Haley voters on net support several of the president’s proposals on health care, junk fees, and Social Security and Medicare:
“Increase the number of prescription drugs that Medicare can negotiate the price of for seniors,” 81 percent net support.
“Ban businesses from charging consumers hidden or misleading fees for live event tickets, hotels, apartment rentals, and other services,” 79 percent net support.
“Cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for every American who needs it,” 75 percent net support.
“Protect Medicare and Social Security from funding cuts or increases in the age of eligibility,” 68 percent net support.
“Permanently extend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) protections for those with pre-existing conditions,” 59 percent net support.
Notably, Haley voters are also closer to Biden than to Trump on some aspects of foreign policy. For example, Haley voters oppose the idea of “cutting off aid to Ukraine” by a 30-point net margin while Trump primary voters support cutting off aid to Ukraine by a 37-point net margin. Haley voters also oppose Trump’s proposal to “refuse to defend NATO members who do not meet the treaty's military spending requirement” by a 5-point net margin while Trump primary voters support the idea by a 60-point net margin.
Although the survey did not go into detail on the Israel-Hamas war, we do find Haley voters backing Trump’s proposal to “reject refugees from Gaza from entering the United States and revoke the visas of pro-Palestine, non-citizen protestors and deport them,” by an 11-point net margin suggesting that these voters have little patience for the campus protests and other ongoing pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rallies around the country.
One survey alone cannot tell us everything we would like to know about Haley voters. But this current wave of research does give us some general guidance on how these voters might behave over the next few months.
Trump currently is ignoring Haley and her supporters while Biden has offered some but not significant outreach. This seems shortsighted, particularly for Biden. Although both candidates have work to do to gain the trust and votes of Haley’s primary supporters, the current president has a lot more work to do to improve his image and convince these Republicans and independents to crossover and vote for him this fall.
It might just determine the outcome.
Has anyone asked the Haley voters - or any voters - about illegal immigration on the border with Mexico regarding Biden-Trump? It's the only issue that might cause me to support Trump, which in all honesty, I find appalling. Ukraine is the other - and I would support Biden. How did we get into this mess?
Biden has some great ideas, especially around junk fees and medical negotiations. He really does, but he has some other fundamental ideas, like immigration, spending, DEI, and women that are just too hard to overlook. For me.