If Republican Nikki Haley decides to run for president in 2024, she made a lot of friends this election cycle to call on for help.
In Iowa, the lead-off state in the presidential nominating process, Haley lent her endorsement to six candidates — which included flipping pork burgers alongside two of them at a Sioux City fundraiser.
All six won their GOP primaries.
In New Hampshire, which holds the first presidential primary in the nation, Haley is waiting to see if her endorsement will boost congressional candidate Matt Mowers in his quest for the Republican nomination Sept. 13.
And in Haley's home state of South Carolina, seasoned GOP operatives are quick to point to her influence in one of the Palmetto State's most competitive Republican congressional primaries in June as a sign of her star power when the former United Nations ambassador found herself at odds with her one-time boss, former President Donald Trump.
Haley backed U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace; Trump backed challenger Katie Arrington.
Haley sided with the winner.
"Nikki's always had good political instincts," said Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina GOP chairman. "And it does matter when you go and endorse like Nikki does."
And her record so far shows it: 90 percent have won.
Hitting the stump
Haley's fall schedule is filling up with travel plans that will take her across the country to headline in-person campaign events designed to boost Republicans' odds in the upcoming midterm election.
These trips will take Haley to key early presidential nominating states like New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, as well as battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia and Texas.
Additional events are scheduled for Illinois, Indiana and New Jersey. The list is likely to grow.
"America is worth fighting for and that’s why we're crisscrossing the country campaigning for conservatives up and down the ballot," Haley told The Post and Courier. "Americans are fed up with (President Joe) Biden's open southern border, failed economy and embarrassing foreign policy. We need leaders who are fighters, and we're doing our part to make that happen."
Haley's willingness to stump for candidates around the country could also give her a goodwill boost and network of support if she launches a White House bid.
"Endorsements are a way for someone to stay active in politics," said Kyle Kondik, who tracks U.S. campaigns and elections as managing editor of the Crystal Ball political analysis newsletter at the University of Virginia.
"And if Haley didn't really care about being in office anymore, maybe she wouldn't be doing this."
53 candidates, 48 wins
To political observers and GOP strategists, Haley's endorsements suggest she is not fixated on notching victories en masse, like Trump, who has endorsed more than 250 candidates in the past two years. That includes 232 this year alone. All but 13 won. Four races are undecided.Â
Instead, analysts view Haley's endorsements as a way for her to make friends and influence people as she deliberates 2024.
"She is playing to keep her hopes in the party alive," said Dave Wasserman, a national elections analyst who focuses on House races at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.Â
But that has been a challenge for Haley, Wasserman said, with so much attention on other GOP figures like Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who have "sucked the oxygen away from everyone else."Â
In contrast to Trump, Haley has been more selective about who gets her stamp of approval, opting to endorse more than 50 candidates during the same two-year timeframe with overwhelmingly positive results.
Of the 53 candidates Haley endorsed in the past two years, 48 won their elections. One remains undecided. Four came up short.
The most recent defeat came Aug. 31, when former Alaska governor and one-time vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin lost a special election for Alaska's lone House seat.
Palin endorsed Haley in her 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary. Haley sought to return the favor this go-round, telling NewsMax host Eric Bolling, "She was America First before Donald Trump was America First."
But was Haley's endorsement a difference-maker in any of these races? Analysts largely agree it's hard to say and almost impossible to measure.
"There aren't any voters in these swing districts who say, 'Well, I'm going to support this candidate because Nikki Haley endorsed them,'" Wasserman said. "Yes, she might be able to help with a fundraiser that draws local donors in some places, but she's triangulated on Trump so much that it's not at all clear what her base is within today's Republican Party."
Not all high-profile or risky Republican races drew Haley’s attention. She stayed out of contests where the six House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump were seeking reelection, including Liz Cheney in Wyoming where Trump-backed candidate Harriet Hageman prevailed.
But Haley did take a risk on her home turf.
President Donald Trump meets with outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Haley's bet on Mace, avoidance on Rice
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Rice knew his vote to impeach Trump could cost him his reelection in South Carolina. But when he met with his campaign team this year, his chief strategist suggested they call in a favor.
"She's popular. People like her," Walter Whetsell remembers telling Rice sometime in January or February. "And, you know, she has the Trump affiliation, too."
"Maybe," Whetsell continued, "it could take a little bit of the sting out of the impeachment vote."
Rice refused.
Yes, Haley had helped him win the 2012 primary runoff against André Bauer. But a decade later, Rice didn't want to subject her to the potential fallout of this GOP primary. The political price, Rice explained to Whetsell, was his alone to bear.
Whetsell said Rice would not seek endorsements, but would welcome them if offered. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie did.Â
Haley did not.
Haley's endorsements also show how Haley is navigating her own political relationship with Trump, though she rarely found herself at odds with Trump in the GOP contests. She is supporting Trump-endorsed Senate candidates like Herschel Walker in Georgia and Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, among others.
But three times this cycle Haley's primary picks went head-to-head with Trump-backed candidates. Haley saw her picks prevail twice.
First, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp beat Trump's hand-picked candidate, David Perdue.Â
The other, in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District, was her most direct confrontation with the former president. Haley bet big on Mace, R-Isle of Palms.
The freshman lawmaker became one of Trump's most vocal Republican critics in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack, though she did not vote to impeach him. But it was Haley's maneuvering to support Mace two days before Trump jumped in to back Arrington, a former state lawmaker from Summerville, that left Republicans here impressed with Haley's political instincts.
After the primary, Mace's campaign manager Austin McCubbin likened it to an opening move in a chess game, dubbing it "Haley's gambit."
But it wasn't just the endorsement alone that helped Mace. Haley raised more than $400,000 for Mace, including a fundraiser in Charleston that brought in more than $300,000.
She also did get-out-the-vote videos, robocalls and texts. Haley also appeared in Mace's third TV ad of the primary cycle, where she called Mace "tough as nails."
None of that happened for Rice, who lost to state Rep. Russell Fry, R-Surfside.
Whetsell still thinks a Haley endorsement could have helped move the needle for Rice. Dawson said he knows it did for Mace. He saw polling that showed Haley's endorsement boosted Mace by 3-4 points in a primary where she won by nearly 8 percentage points.
"Nikki's endorsement, in my mind, would have been the single most consequential endorsement in that race," Whetsell said. "When she endorses, it's not a tweet or a press release. She comes and raises money. She does rallies. She does TV ads. Her endorsement is not an endorsement in name-only. That's what makes her endorsement unique. When she's in, she's all in."
That kind of investment, Dawson said, is hard for any candidate to forget.
