Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has supported presidential nominee Donald Trump in her Republican convention speech, her latest step toward embracing her former rival and unifying the party.
Before the speech on Tuesday night (local time), Haley had said she intended to “address voters who are uncertain about voting for president Trump and make the case for why she is voting for him”, a person familiar with her speech told CNN.
Haley’s speech was written in consultation with the Trump campaign and approved by Republican convention officials, as all such addresses are.
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Haley, who released her delegates last week and implored them to support Trump, was a late addition to the program.
She was invited to appear onstage in Milwaukee on the same day as the assassination attempt on Trump, which was followed by the former president’s call for themes of unity at the convention.
Tuesday’s speech continues a gradual easing of tensions between Haley and Trump after a bruising, year-long campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, in which Haley urged GOP voters to back her to avoid the “chaos” she said follows the former president.
After primary losses in New Hampshire and her home state of South Carolina, Haley defied calls to drop out and rally around Trump.
Instead, she leaned harder into criticisms of the former president and his age.
At campaign events, she frequently pointed out polls which suggested she would be more competitive than Trump against President Joe Biden in a general election match-up and warned Trump’s legal troubles would dominate much of the campaign cycle.
When Haley did end her campaign in early March, the day after Super Tuesday, she did not endorse the former president — as primary rivals such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had done.
DeSantis, who dropped out after losing the Iowa caucuses, is also set to speak on Tuesday.
“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the vote — those in our party and beyond it, who did not support him. And I hope he does that,” Haley said in her exit announcement.
But in May, Haley, who had served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, said she would vote for the former president, arguing Biden would be worse for America.
And last week, soon after she released her delegates to vote for Trump, her former rival said he would “take a look” at inviting her to speak at the convention.
“There was a lot of bad blood there,” Trump told Fox News radio last week.
“She stayed too long. She was being soundly defeated at every place, but she just wouldn’t leave.”
Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley said he thought it was “tremendously important” Haley would be speaking at the convention.
“We want to talk about unifying the country, and I think that’s really where the president wants to go, particularly coming out of Saturday,” Whatley said. “So having ambassador Haley here is very important for us.”
Whatley declined to say when exactly the invitation to speak at the convention had been extended to Haley.
Haley won fewer than 100 delegates, compared with the more than 2,200 who are bound to Trump, and she won just two primaries, in Vermont and Washington, DC.
But in the weeks after dropping out, she continued to receive tens of thousands of votes in primaries, including in key battleground states such as Arizona and Pennsylvania.
The Biden campaign has sought to reach Haley’s supporters through television and digital ads in hopes of reminding them of Trump’s insults aimed at their candidate.
Facing the convention crowd
The question now is whether the unity Republicans are projecting at their convention has extended to Haley voters. Some supporters think it will.
“The Nikki Haley voters will come around to Trump,” longtime Haley ally and former South Carolina Republican Party chairman Katon Dawson said.
“It might take a while, but they’ll come.”
Dawson pointed to his own decision to back Trump and argued that, despite Haley’s past criticism of the former president, the country couldn’t handle another four years of Biden.
He predicted the former governor would deliver a “vintage Haley” speech, focused on the future of the country while also striking a more conciliatory tone.
“She’s doing the right thing,” Dawson said of Haley speaking at the convention.
But the crowd will also include thousands of Republican Party activists, some of whom are still wary of her after the primary.
“I have no problem with her speaking tonight, only if she puts her complete support behind president Trump,” Arizona delegate Susan Cheatham said, adding she thought Haley stayed in the race as long as she did to “discredit and disrupt” Trump’s campaign.
South Carolina delegate Angie Fisher predicted the reaction to her home state’s former governor would be mixed — and some delegates might boo her.
“If they don’t, it’s because they have Southern hospitality and won’t do that at an event like this,” Fisher said.
“But for the most part, people who support Trump are not in support of how she handled running.”
Aaron Farris, an uncommitted delegate from Minnesota — where Haley won nearly 30 per cent of the primary vote — said he voted for Trump but respects the former ambassador’s work at the United Nations.
“Stuff gets said during primaries,” Farris said.
“At the end of the day, it’s important that we’re all unified going into November.”
Julia Black, another South Carolina delegate, said she supported Haley when she led the state but always planned to vote for Trump in the primary.
“I think she has come back into the fold with the rest of us, and I think she’ll speak about unity and just advancing the party,” Black said.
Black said the criticisms Haley levelled at Trump during the primary were just a normal part of politics.
“Who won?” Black said. “Politicians. They say what they’ve got to say.”
