Some major donors to the Republican Party are beginning a slow turn toward Trump

Nikki Haley lost to Iowa. Then she lost New Hampshire. Now some of the biggest donors in the Republican Party — a Trump-resistant donor class that has been fueling its candidacy for months — are at least opening the door to former President Donald J. Trump.

A network of some of the nation's wealthiest Republican donors gathered this week at a winter meeting in Florida, held by the American Opportunity Alliance, and heard from top aides to both Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley. The meeting on Monday and Tuesday was one of the first significant steps for some of these donors in Mr. Trump's halting return to reality, after aides to Mr. Trump did not receive such an invitation to the group's fall retreat.

Ms. Haley has a series of fundraisers in the coming days, one of which will be held in New York City on Tuesday evening. Money will not be an obstacle to her candidacy. But privately, some of the party's top donors — including some who support Ms. Haley — say they are ready for the fight to end in order to focus on President Biden, conceding that Ms. Haley has little chance of overtaking Mr. Trump without an unforeseen event.

At the American Opportunity Alliance retreat, Ms. Haley had far more support than Mr. Trump. Kenneth Griffin, a billionaire hedge fund executive and major Republican donor who attended the retreat, gave $5 million to her super PAC this month, according to a person close to him.

Before Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida withdrew from the race, he and his allies had expected Mr. Griffin's support because the investor had given him generously in the past. But Mr. Griffin was disappointed by what he saw as an incompetent campaign coupled with deep policy mistakes, such as Mr. DeSantis' description of Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a “territorial dispute,” according to several people familiar with his thinking.

Mr. Griffin had been waiting for a younger candidate who could challenge Mr. Trump, and it took him months before he decided to back Ms. Haley. He praised Ms. Haley in a statement to reporters, saying that “America would be well served by having someone with her foreign policy credentials and policy priorities in the White House.”

But speaking at an event earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Griffin admitted that her path was “narrower” than it was two months ago, before Mr. Trump won Iowa and New Hampshire. The $5 million he contributed to Ms. Haley's super PAC, while a significant amount by normal accounting, is a relatively modest donation for Mr. Griffin. In 2022 he has spent $50 million in an effort to defeat Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat.

Another donor, Las Vegas developer Robert Bigelow, is not part of the AOA network but had backed Mr. DeSantis with a $20 million donation to his super PAC. This week he said he was giving the same amount to Trump.

Olivia Perez-Cubas, spokeswoman for the Haley campaign, said: “No one said this would be easy, but we continue to run a smart campaign that will ensure Republicans don't continue to lose. Nikki is the only thing standing in the way of a rematch between Trump and Biden, something 70 percent of Americans do not want.”

Susie Wiles, a top adviser to Mr. Trump's campaign, told the AOA meeting at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach, Florida, a simple story, using graphs, that depicted Mr. Trump as the inevitable Republican nominee. She described to donors how he would win in the fall and said the campaign would welcome support from the party's top donors, according to three people familiar with the event.

Ms. Wiles' invitation to the AOA event marked the first time the group, which holds two meetings a year, had hosted a representative from the Trump camp during the 2024 primaries. At their fall meeting last year in Dallas, only advisers to Ms. Haley, Mr. DeSantis and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina were invited. Both Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Scott have since withdrawn from the presidential race.

Ms. Haley's campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, gave what two people described as an impassioned pitch at the AOA meeting, calling her candidate an alternative to a chaotic and unpopular presidential candidate who could set off a domino effect of losses in the House and the Senate for the party. November.

Ms. Ankney laid out what she portrayed as damning facts about Trump's candidacy. Her litany included the $83.3 million Trump was ordered to pay last week in a defamation lawsuit brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, whom an earlier jury found he had sexually abused, according to the people familiar with her comments .

Ms. Ankney acknowledged that Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and ambassador to the United Nations, faced an uphill battle to defeat Mr. Trump. But she insisted that Ms. Haley stay in the race as long as she had money and momentum, the people said.

Ms. Haley has longstanding ties to a number of donors to the American Opportunity Alliance, and the network does not move in lockstep. Nevertheless, Ms. Wiles' presentation to the group of largely Trump-resistant donors reflects that many of them are finally, after much whining and whining, entering the acceptance phase of the grieving cycle. Whether those offended by Mr. Trump decide to join him, sit out the primaries or stay on the sidelines in a general election remains to be seen.

Ms. Wiles' presentation came just days after the former president threatened to freeze all major donors giving to Ms. Haley in a post on his social media website, Truth Social. Ms. Wiles acknowledged her candidate's comments, but mentioned the various ways her team had tried to get Mr. Trump's nomination done as quickly as possible. For example, she highlighted how the Trump team had worked behind the scenes, with a team of experienced strategists, to get the Republican parties to change the rules so he could gather as many delegates as possible.

She also promoted the Trump campaign's powerful online fundraising operation and questioned Ms. Haley's general election prospects. She said she doubted the former president's die-hard base would vote for Ms. Haley. Mr. Trump has criticized Ms. Haley for appealing to Democrats and independents in open primaries, and his advisers have said she crossed a line by saying this weekend that she had confidence in the New York jury that found Ms. Carroll had slandered. .

The presentations and their reception by the gathered donors were described by three people people who attended or were briefed on it and who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the meeting.

The winter meeting of the group – founded a decade ago by wealthy investors including Paul Singer and Mr. Griffin, both hedge fund magnates – came at a crucial time in the Republican primaries. Trump, fresh off decisive victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, hopes to crush Ms. Haley in her home state of South Carolina in the Feb. 24 primaries, likely dealing a fatal blow to her candidacy.

For the Trump team, which is simultaneously fighting the four criminal charges Mr. Trump was charged with in 2023, spending money on Ms. Haley during the month of February, weeks before any of the trials can begin, is an unwelcome proposition.

This week's event was, as several people described it, much less confrontational than the last AOA meeting. During that meeting, the DeSantis team in particular faced questions that, according to those present, bordered on hostility.

An ally of Ms. Haley, who spoke anonymously because the person was not authorized to publicly discuss the event, praised Ms. Wiles for appearing before a skeptical audience.

“The bridge was never burned,” said a senior Trump adviser, Chris LaCivita, when asked in an interview about the Trump campaign's stance toward major Republican donors like Mr. Singer and Mr. Griffin, who opposed the Mr Trump have resisted.

“The bridge is there,” Mr. LaCivita added. “It's up to them whether they want to cross. These are all smart people. They know there is no path to victory, no matter what Nikki and co are. invent.”