Some Democrats Want To Help Nikki Haley As A Way To Mess With Trump

"Haley isn’t someone who will inspire an insurrection or who would deny the election," said a Democrat leading a campaign to get crossover votes for Haley.

Tiffany James has spent her career working to advance Democratic priorities, and that’s why she’s committed to helping Nikki Haley beat Donald Trump in South Carolina’s GOP presidential primary.

“We want to convince people to put country over party and to say our democracy is at stake,” James, a South Carolina organizer for Primary Pivot, a national super PAC whose goal is to persuade Democrats to vote in open primaries for Haley. “We need to make the best decisions and put our vote strategically toward someone who can help keep our democracy intact.”

James, a South Carolinian who has worked on the Democratic presidential campaigns of Pete Buttigieg and John Kerry, realizes this isn’t the easiest sell for many Democrats. But the idea isn’t that they’ll have to vote for Haley, South Carolina’s former governor, in the general election or even that they’ll have to switch registrations. It’s a one-time vote for Haley on Feb. 24, with the goal of stopping the candidate seen as the more dangerous of the two remaining GOP options, neither of whom Democrats actually want getting near the White House.

“A lot of her policies and platforms I don’t agree with, but we can agree on democracy. Haley isn’t someone who will inspire an insurrection or who would deny the election. She is somebody who respects our Constitution and respects our democracy,” James said. “That is the one thing we can agree on.”

Trump’s allies have made much of Haley’s electoral and financial support from Democrats, arguing that you can’t rely on non-Republicans to win a GOP primary and suggesting Haley should drop out of contention. At the same time, some of Haley’s recent attacks on Trump, particularly her repeated suggestions that he’s mentally unfit for office, have direct appeal to the type of anti-Trump Democrats who could chip in with small-dollar donations.