‘I can’t deal’: Haley voters signal they won’t vote for Trump against Biden

Donald Trump’s healthy defeat of Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire primary obscured a potential vulnerability he’d carry into a likely general election with President Biden: Centrist Republicans and right-leaning independents who are unlikely to stomach a vote for the former president this fall.

A significant number of Haley voters exited polling places on Tuesday expressing their unwillingness to support a second Trump term. Other Republicans indicated in interviews they could be coaxed into backing a third-party “No Labels” ticket, depending on the candidates drafted.

While Trump carried 70% of registered New Hampshire Republicans, according to CNN’s exit poll, he secured only 32% of the undeclared voters against Haley, who courted them aggressively. Even in victory, Trump lamented “the tremendous numbers of independents” who came out.

In her own speech signaling her intention to soldier on to February’s South Carolina primary, Haley delivered one of her most definitive critiques of Trump’s vulnerability in November.

“The worst kept secret in politics is how badly the Democrats want to run against Donald Trump,” Haley said. “A Trump nomination is a Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency … I defeat Biden handily.”

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Brian Pfitzer held his nose on Tuesday as he cast his primary ballot for Haley at a precinct near downtown Concord. He said he was “disillusioned” with the current state of politics, but was particularly opposed to Trump.

“I can’t deal with four more years of Trump,” Pfitzer, 70, said.

If Trump ends up being the Republican nominee as expected, Pfitzer said he would vote for Biden in November.

Just a few blocks away, Denise Leville left the Green Street Community Center after casting her vote for Haley in the primary. Like Pfitzer, she is deeply concerned about four more years of a Trump White House.

“I don’t think anybody should vote for Donald Trump and I really will be depressed if he’s president,” Leville said, who added she’ll likely cast her ballot for Biden if Trump is the GOP standard bearer.

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Jim Rubens, a former U.S. Senate candidate and member of the Grafton County GOP executive committee, said the primaries would be Trump’s high-water mark in 2024 and was already warning of potential interest in a No Labels ticket.

“It’s going to get worse for Trump, not better,” predicted Rubens, who voted for Trump in 2016. “No Labels is going to come in big time... if they can come up with the right package.”

Bob Goodman, a New Hampshirite who supported Ron Paul’s presidential sojourn, decamped to Florida this winter to escape the frigid northeast weather and what he sees as a disheartening political environment.

A conservative Christian who voted for Trump twice, Goodman applauded Trump’s achievement of a right-leaning Supreme Court but said he found the former president’s style off-putting and his baggage exhausting.

“All the indictments. Where’s it all end?,” Goodman texted. “I would love an alternative to Trump. No Labels group is looking better and better every day.”

Mike Madrid, a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, stressed that if even if 15 to 20% of Haley voters withheld their support in the general, it could cripple Trump’s coalition.

And even if Haley ultimately endorses Trump, it probably wouldn’t sway that silo of voters.

“If it’s an anti-Trump vote, they don’t care what Haley does or who she endorses. They’re not for her, they’re against Trump,” said Madrid. “Biden the big winner in New Hampshire no matter how you look at it.”

But other pollsters said if Trump was hemorrhaging that many traditional Republicans it would be showing up in more general election surveys, many which have shown Trump ahead of Biden.

“What we are likely seeing in these numbers is a smattering of independents and Democrats motivated to enter the Republican primary to stop Trump,” said GOP pollster Patrick Ruffini. “But these people were not for Trump in 2016 or 2020 and so they aren’t part of the base Republicans would normally count on in general elections.”

“If Trump were losing 20% of GOP voters there would be no national polls or target state polls that he led Biden in,” said Tony Fabrizio, the pollster for Trump’s super PAC. “Yet there are tons that he is leading him in.”

If Haley remains in the race through South Carolina, she could benefit from another movement to recruit independents to cast a ballot for the home state candidate.

Jonathan Bush, who helms a super PAC called Independents Moving the Needle, said his group would take its efforts to the Palmetto State, which allows registered residents to vote in partisan primaries, regardless of party affiliation.

Unregistered South Carolinians would need to register by Thursday in order to be eligible to vote.

Correction: The story initially mischaracterized Rubens’ interest in supporting a No Labels ticket.

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