Why black Democrats are unlikely to help Haley in South Carolina

It turned out to be Nikki Haley's most diverse audience yet.

More than two dozen people in a crowd of about 150 that gathered this month in an outdoor space in Gilbert, S.C., just 30 minutes from South Carolina's capital, were Black. They seemed enthusiastic and wore the bright pink feather boas and cowboy hats distributed by the campaign's Women for Nikki coalition.

But less than half an hour after the meeting, the black spectators emerged as demonstrators affiliated with a regional union. They interrupted her stump speech several times and chanted, “What's disgusting? Union busting” at Ms. Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and a self-proclaimed 'union buster'”, before being shouted down.

The scene posed a persistent challenge for Ms. Haley heading into the Republican primary in South Carolina on Feb. 24. She could benefit from an expanded coalition — one with moderates, independents and Democrats — as she takes on former President Donald J. Trump far away. leader of the race. South Carolina's open primary system allows voters to participate in one of both parties' most important contests, and at least one organization, Primary Pivot, has been working to convince Democrats who had not voted earlier this month to vote for Ms. Haley .

But Ms. Haley's relationship with black voters, a key Democratic faction in the state, has long been fraught. Her presidential bid has only increased their skepticism, casting further doubt on a major partisan crossover on Saturday.

“She threw in her lot in a very conservative, far-right Republican Party when she first ran for office. She has not reached the African American community,” said the Rev. Joseph A. Darby, the former first vice president of the South Carolina NAACP, who helped lead the organization during Ms. Haley’s time as governor. “I never thought she would be someone who would reach out to the Black community in a meaningful way. And she did not disappoint me in that.”

In interviews, black leaders and voters cited a number of reasons for their lack of support, including Ms. Haley's refusal years ago to expand Medicaid during her time in office and her support for a strict abortion ban. But it is perhaps her color-blind approach to issues of race and racism that seems to have turned off black voters the most. Like her previous campaigns in South Carolina, Ms. Haley has spoken about the need to denounce racism while downplaying the pervasiveness of racism in American institutions. She points to her own political rise to reject what she describes as a “national self-hatred.”

“I don't know a single black person who is considering voting for her,” said Monique Wilsondebriano, 49, a Charleston business owner and Democratic voter, who said she had received Ms. Haley's campaign texts several times a day. “I appreciate her efforts – and she is doing her best – but it won't make a difference at this point.”

Primary Pivot organizers said they, too, faced resistance from the black voters they asked to support Ms. Haley. Tiffany James, a senior adviser to the group, said many harbored “bitter feelings” as a result of her staunchly conservative policies and her failure to engage with black communities in her state.

Beyond the email and text messages, Ms. Haley's campaign does not appear to be courting non-Republicans, leaning instead on a call for “new generational leadership” that Ms. Haley and her allies say has broad resonance will find. In an interview this month, Ms. Haley, the former U.N. ambassador under Trump, dismissed concerns that her conservative views, especially on race and racism, would turn away black voters. She said her campaign was about “bringing people in, not pushing people away.”

A quarter of South Carolina's population is black, but black voters make up only a small share of the Republican electorate and tend to support Democrats. President Biden won the state's Democratic primary on February 3 by more than 95 percent, a result largely due to support from black voters.

A recent one Monmouth University/Washington Post survey found that black, Hispanic and Asian voters made up just 8 percent of Republican Party primary voters in South Carolina. Of that electorate, Trump received 47 percent support and Ms. Haley earned 29 percent, with 19 percent still undecided.

Some black leaders said she showed more empathy after the 2015 mass shooting at a historic African-American church that left nine black parishioners dead. Mrs. Haley went to every funeral and helped state lawmakers who tried to remove the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina State House.

She often talks about that moment when asked about her ability to govern across party lines. She says it came on the heels of the death of Walter Scott, the Black man who was shot and killed after a traffic stop in 2015 by what she called “a dirty cop.” .”

“We didn't have riots, we had vigils,” she said at a January event in Rye, NH. “We had no protests, we had prayers and we showed the entire country what strength and grace look like.”

But other black leaders say the flag's removal came after pressure from business leaders and top parties and after decades of campaigning by civil rights groups.

Her complicated relationship with race has been highlighted several times during her campaign. Even though Mr. Trump and his supporters have made her and her family the target of racist attacks, she has not described them as such, saying only that she would leave that up to the people to decide. The former president has questioned her citizenship and path to the White House because of her Indian immigrant parents and has mocked her birth name, Nimarata Nikki Randhawa.

In December, she was widely criticized when a voter asked her to explain the causes of the Civil War and she did not mention slavery. In defending her omission during a CNN town hall before the Iowa caucuses, she used an oft-derided cliché when talking about race, saying she had “black friends growing up.” Weeks later, Democrats and black leaders condemned her for claiming that the United States had “never been a racist country.”

Not all black voters have ruled her out, however. In Gilbert, where the union protesters interrupted Ms. Haley, Harry Boyd, 47, a black Republican and program manager, said he admired Trump's policies but saw Ms. Haley as a “breath of fresh air.” He cited her leadership experience and foreign policy credentials as reasons for his support.

“I think she would be a good fit for the country,” he said.

Christopher Cameron And Ruth Igielnik reporting contributed.