Nikki Haley raises $16.5 million and boosts her fight against Trump
Nikki Haley's campaign officials said Monday that she raised $16.5 million in January, her largest monthly fundraiser to date, adding a new influx of cash to the $14.6 million her campaign raised in the new year to continue the nomination battle with Donald. J. Trump goes.
Public polls have shown that Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, has made little progress in closing the gap with the former president, either in her home state, where the Republican primary will be held on February 24, or nationally .
But a burst of fundraising and national publicity, including a surprise appearance on NBC's “Saturday Night Live,” have quelled rumors that she could soon withdraw from the race. Her announced fundraising numbers in January, which included $11.7 million from digital and direct mail efforts and 69,274 new donors, indicated she was not about to give up.
“We will have the resources to go the distance,” Betsy Ankeny, Ms. Haley’s campaign manager, told reporters Monday morning. “We will continue to fight as long as we have momentum and the resources to do so.”
Ms. Ankeny openly admitted that Ms. Haley had long odds but argued that she had outperformed public polls in the New Hampshire primary two weeks ago. Since then, Ms. Haley has stormed through South Carolina, while Mr. Trump has not held a public event in the state since New Hampshire.
“This is a race to become the leader of the free world,” Ms. Ankeny said. “It should be hard.”
Ms. Ankeny emphasized that if Mr. Trump were to win the nomination, public attention would shift to his liabilities, especially the four criminal cases against him, his propensity for tantrums and the deep distaste many voters harbor for the former president.
Regardless of current polling, “we've seen this movie before,” she said, pointing to Republicans losing the House of Representatives in 2018 and the White House and Senate in 2020.
“Republicans will lose a rematch between Trump and President Biden in November,” she predicted.