A growing number of US business leaders are rallying behind former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as the Republican presidential nominee, seeing her as more stable than rival Donald Trump and more favorable to business interests than incumbent Joe Biden.
“Even if you’re a very liberal Democrat, I urge you: help Nikki Haley, too. Get a Republican option that might be better than Trump,” said Jamie Dimon, who as head of JPMorgan Chase often is regarded as one of the most powerful CEOs in the country.
In the past month or so, a growing list of entrepreneurs and business leaders have lined up behind Trump’s former UN ambassador for her, boosting her campaign coffers or considering doing so as her polling position strengthens.
Among them Charles Koch, one of the biggest donors in US politics, and billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller.
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In early December, during a fundraiser at a luxury apartment on New York’s Upper West Side, Haley collected more than $500,000 in pledges from members of the city’s business elite.
“I think a lot of donors, including business people, were initially sitting on the sidelines, waiting to see how it would shake out, who could stay up” after months of campaigning, said David Primo, a political science professor at the University of Rochester. .
By late October, Haley was polling less than 10 percent for the Jan. 15 Iowa caucus, the first vote on the U.S. political calendar. He’s now at nearly 18 percent, almost on par with Florida Gov. Ron DeSandis, who has about 19 percent.
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Haley was “impressive in the talks,” Primo said, adding that “business leaders are concerned about the potential volatility of another Trump presidency.”
“It seems like it will stick to guardrails a lot more than others,” said Daniel Kinderman, a professor at the University of Delaware.
“That’s something that business leaders, I think, generally appreciate. They don’t like it when things get too crazy,” he said.
“Fiscal discipline”
Haley supports tax cuts, a gradual return to balanced budgets and raising the minimum retirement age.
“She is committed to fiscal discipline and fiscal consolidation and is concerned about the national debt,” said Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute. “This is a traditional Republican policy.”
“He has experience as a governor of a state and has been seen, in general, as business-friendly,” Primo said.
“He knows how to interact with business leaders,” he added.
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Trump also wants to cut taxes, particularly corporate taxes, but talks very little about deficits and debt. His promise to extend and raise tariffs is causing great concern in business circles.
Haley is not “isolationist, nativist or a narrow free trader,” even if she does favor a firmer hand against China, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who teaches business administration at Yale and regularly surveys economic leaders.
The 51-year-old is even starting to win over some Democrats, such as investor Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn.
“Nikki Haley is a skilled politician,” he recently told Barron’s magazine, adding that she is “an American institutionalist when it comes to our democracy and the rule of law.”
During Wednesday’s Republican primary debate, one of her opponents, Vivek Ramaswamy, accused Haley of being “corrupt” because of her ties to the business world and particularly her support of Hoffman, whom he described as “George Soros Jr.”
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Others also wonder how her big-business-friendly image might translate to Republican voters.
“Aren’t you too tight-lipped with the banks and billionaires to win over the working-class base of the Republican Party, who mostly want to break the system, not elect someone beholden to it?” moderator Megyn Kelly asked her during the recent debate.
“When it comes to these corporate people wanting to support us all of a sudden, we’ll take it,” Haley replied. “But I don’t ask them what their policies are, they ask me what my policies are.”
Beyond Haley’s policy differences with Trump, “there is concern about President Trump’s electability,” Michael Strain said.
A recent poll by the Harris Institute gave Haley a better chance over Biden than Trump, who faces multiple trials in four venues on a range of charges.
“The unusual thing here is to have a candidate 50 points ahead in the polls for the primary who is not the strongest candidate in the general election,” Strain said.
Source: AFP