As Michigan votes, Haley denounces Trump in Colorado and presses party officials

While voting was underway in Michigan, Nikki Haley gave her closing address to voters further west in Colorado, where voting takes place on Super Tuesday next week.

Speaking to hundreds of supporters packed into an airplane hangar near Denver on Tuesday, Ms. Haley again urged Republicans to abandon former President Donald J. Trump. She called him a self-righteous and unstable leader who could not win in November.

The Republican National Committee should not have to cover his legal costs, she said, another point she makes often. But this time she tried to put pressure on committee members – even if it was somewhat theoretical.

“If there is a resolution on whether RNC funds will pay legal fees, we deserve to see how every member of the national committee votes,” Ms. Haley, flanked by military aircraft at the Centennial meeting, said. Colorado.

Ms. Haley did not answer questions from reporters afterward.

After a string of losses in her quest for the 2024 Republican nomination, including in her own home turf of South Carolina, Ms. Haley has stepped up her attacks on Trump and his transformation of the Republican Party. The stop in Denver was part of a national campaign that included a stop in Michigan on Sunday; she has stops planned in several other Super Tuesday states before the delegate-heavy elementary school day on March 5.

Before cheering on crowds in several Michigan and Minnesota suburbs on Monday, Ms. Haley argued that the former president is turning the Republican Party into his own personal “box.” She reiterated her argument that her ability to draw about 40 percent of the vote in South Carolina and New Hampshire showed Trump’s vulnerability.

“Donald Trump doesn’t pay attention to the Republican Party,” she said Monday during a stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan. ‘He doesn’t pay attention to America. He looks out for himself.”

Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, has continually sought traction. Her campaign officials tried to temper expectations for her in Michigan on Tuesday, saying that Trump had been campaigning in the state for much longer than Ms. Haley, who held her first events there in recent days.

Super Tuesday could be crucial for Ms. Haley, but polls show her trailing far behind Mr. Trump both in those states and nationally. She suffered another blow on Sunday when Americans for Prosperity Action, the political network founded by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, suspended spending on her presidential bid.

Ms. Haley has tried to downplay the significance of that decision, saying her campaign was “never financially dependent” on the group.

“They are a great organization that believes in freedom and smaller government, and I appreciate the partnership,” she said. “But that wasn’t something we were after for money.”