Nikki Haley’s Republican delegates in Michigan are divided over supporting Trump
Most of former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s delegates in Michigan – some of whom have dedicated their careers to Republican Party causes – said in recent days they are not yet sure whether they will vote for their party’s presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, in November.
Their comments, made in a series of interviews with The Detroit News ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, pointed to a weak spot for Trump: GOP-leaning voters in a swing state who see Trump as too unpredictable an option for another four years in the White House. The interviews took place both before and after a gunman attempted to murder him on Saturday in Pennsylvania.
More: Assassination attempt on Trump disrupts already turbulent presidential election campaign in Michigan
Jimmy Greene, a Republican from Saginaw who previously led an association that advocated for nonunion contractors, was one of Haley’s supporters in Michigan during the primary. Greene called the shooting a “tragedy” but said he would not vote for Trump on Election Day. Instead, Greene said he might vote for Democratic President Joe Biden.
Greene said he knows what to expect from Biden. He said his life will not change much under another Biden term, aside from potentially higher taxes and gas prices. “The world is not going to explode,” Greene said, if Biden wins another term.
“With Donald Trump … I don’t think the world will be the same,” Greene said.
The Republican National Convention, a week-long event that will officially nominate Trump as the presidential candidate, begins Monday at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
Trump won 51 of Michigan’s 55 delegates to the convention. However, Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, won four delegates by receiving 27% of the vote in the statewide primary on February 27. That means Haley could have up to eight supporters – four delegates and four alternates – as her Michigan representatives at the convention.
Five of Haley’s eight delegates or alternates told The News they either would not vote for Trump or were unsure which candidate they would support in November. Three of the eight said they would definitely not attend the convention.
When asked if he would attend the meeting, Haley delegate Greene simply replied, “Absolutely not.”
Haley represents true Republicanism, while Trump focuses on a different political philosophy, Greene argued.
Jason Watts, a longtime Republican political consultant from Allegan County, will attend the convention as a replacement delegate for Haley, but Watts said he wants to “represent those Republicans who believe the current candidate does not represent them.”
“As a former election official, I don’t believe that if you just scream that there was election rigging, it will miraculously become a reality,” Watts said, referring to Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
On Sunday, Watts said the possibility that he might vote for Trump in November was “the rarest of possibilities.”
In Michigan, Biden won 51 percent to 48 percent in 2020, three percentage points more than Trump. Court rulings, bipartisan election committees and a Senate Republican investigation confirmed the result, but years later Trump continued to insist on widespread electoral fraud without any evidence.
“The majority of officials in this state and many other states are Republicans,” Watts said. “They are not going to rig the election.”
Watts, 47, said he has been a Republican all his life.
Elusive voting bloc
Republican Rep. Mark Tisdel of Rochester Hills is another delegate to Haley’s convention. Unlike some of the others, Tisdel said he plans to vote for Trump in November.
“Many of his policies have been very well received by a broad base of Republicans,” Tisdel said of the former president.
Tisdel criticized Biden’s handling of the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel as well as the national debt.
Asked if she would support Trump in November, Kristin Combs, a Lansing-based political consultant and Haley delegate, responded in an email last week: “I am a Republican. Not only has Joe Biden and his ‘Bidenomics’ been an unquestioned failure for Michigan families and small business owners, but he is clearly no longer even capable of holding down a job as demanding as that of President of the United States.”
When asked if she planned to vote for Trump, Combs repeated her answer without referring to Trump or specifying how she would vote.
Combs, who will attend the Republican National Convention, agreed that Haley’s voters in Michigan could be decisive in November, noting that nearly 300,000 people voted for Haley in Michigan’s Feb. 27 primary.
“In a win-or-lose general election, Haley voters represent a significant but elusive voting bloc, and I’m sure the presidential camps are already working to bring him into their ranks,” Combs said.
‘In the air’
Another Haley delegate, Daylen Howard, a 29-year-old Republican from Shiawassee County, said he would not attend this week’s convention.
“The reason I want to go is because I want Nikki to be represented. The reason I don’t want to go is because it’s going to be a MAGA fest,” Howard said last week, referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.
On Sunday, Howard said he was undecided about how he would vote in November and wanted to wait and see how Trump reacted to the shooting at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. But Howard predicted Trump would win the election after the assassination attempt.
To the frustration of some longtime Republicans, Trump’s supporters have largely taken over the Republican national political apparatus.
His daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, is co-chair of the Republican National Committee. Former Michigan Representative Pete Hoekstra, who served as ambassador to the Netherlands during Trump’s last term, is chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.
On Tuesday, Haley, who had previously blamed Trump for election losses in states such as Michigan, gave her delegates the option to vote for Trump instead of her at the convention. In March, Haley said she planned to vote for Trump in November after months of harshly criticizing the former president during the campaign, accusing him of creating chaos in the Republican Party and causing the party to suffer losses in the 2022 midterm elections.
“Joe Biden is not fit for a second term and Kamala Harris would be a disaster for America,” Haley tweeted last week. “We need a president who will hold our enemies accountable, secure our borders, reduce our debt and get our economy back on track.”
“I encourage my delegates to support Donald Trump next week in Milwaukee.”
Howard, who ran unsuccessfully for Michigan State Senate in 2022, said Trump makes everything his own. This fall’s election will be the third presidential election Howard has been able to vote in, and in all three, he said, he has not been thrilled with the options on the ballot.
Casey VanderWeide, 29, of Grand Rapids, an alternate delegate for Haley, said last week that she is a conservative and Biden does not align with her values. VanderWeide said she is not enthusiastic about supporting Trump at the ballot box.
“I’m a little undecided right now,” VanderWeide said. “I’m not a fan of voting for Biden, but I’m not thrilled about voting for Trump either.”
VanderWeide lives in Kent County, a long-time Republican stronghold that has gained increasing support among Democrats in recent years.
Haley received 34% of the vote in the Kent County primary in February, while Trump received 59%. Nationwide, the former president received 68% of the vote.
The race ahead of us
Jeff Litten, 29, of Oakland County, an alternate delegate for Haley, said he decided not to attend the convention because he had been to Trump rallies before and they were not his “thing.”
On Sunday, Litten said he was unsure how he would vote in November, but he was considering voting for Trump.
“Both sides hate each other so much,” Litten said. “They don’t respect each other’s differences. They just hate each other.”
Litten said he was concerned about Biden’s mental state and whether the Democratic incumbent was capable of handling a national emergency that struck in the middle of the night. As for Trump, Litten said he wanted a leader the next generation could look up to.
In Michigan, 297,124 voters voted for Haley in the Republican primary. In 2020, Biden won Michigan by about 154,000 votes over Trump.
More: Biden attacks Trump and media in Detroit as calls for exit grow
During the primary campaign, Trump repeatedly attacked Haley, who served as his ambassador to the United Nations. Before the Michigan primary, Trump said Haley was “not even a factor.”
Haley, who won over some moderate Republicans, criticized Trump’s divisive political style and his “isolationist” approach to foreign policy.
Less than four months before the general election, Trump still has problems with voters who lean Republican, says Richard Czuba, a pollster and founder of the Lansing-based Glengariff Group.
“Trump is not winning back Nikki Haley’s voters at this point,” Czuba said.
Many former Haley supporters are throwing their support behind third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., giving Biden a chance to win the Michigan race and the state’s 15 Electoral College votes, Czuba said.
But Watts, the longtime Republican adviser, pointed out that Haley’s support for Trump could play a role in her supporters’ decision-making.
“I think they will reluctantly defect to Trump, just as Haley herself did,” Watts said.
Then he added: “But I have not committed myself.”
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