--- title: In Defeat, Haley Voters Have Power to Build On description: Nikki Haley's primary voters can be a powerful bloc if they continue to support an anti-authoritarian agenda. canonical: https://time.com/6881656/nikki-haley-voters-2024-election/ author: Amanda Carpenter article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-03-06T17:59:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-30T13:22:04.238Z article:section: Ideas og:title: In Defeat, Haley Voters Have Power to Build On og:description: Nikki Haley's primary voters can be a powerful bloc if they continue to support an anti-authoritarian agenda. og:url: https://time.com/6881656/nikki-haley-voters-2024-election/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt103ad591f37f181d/698a492547ca3841dc3bc16b/GettyImages-2056067740.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Republican Presidential Candidate Nikki Haley Announces She's Suspending Her Campaign og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: In Defeat, Haley Voters Have Power to Build On twitter:description: Nikki Haley's primary voters can be a powerful bloc if they continue to support an anti-authoritarian agenda. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt103ad591f37f181d/698a492547ca3841dc3bc16b/GettyImages-2056067740.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # In Defeat, Haley Voters Have Power to Build On > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [Amanda Carpenter](https://time.com/author/amanda-carpenter/) and [Beau Tremitiere](https://time.com/author/beau-tremitiere/) Mar 6, 2024 5:59 PM UTC  Republican presidential candidate, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley announces the suspension of her presidential campaign at her campaign headquarters on March 06, 2024 in Daniel Island, South Carolina. Haley's announcement comes after losing all GOP primaries except Vermont in yesterday's Super Tuesday contests. Republican presidential candidate, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley announces the suspension of her presidential campaign at her campaign headquarters on March 06, 2024 in Daniel Island, South Carolina. Haley's announcement comes after losing all GOP primaries except Vermont in yesterday's Super Tuesday contests. Sean Rayford-Getty Images by [Amanda Carpenter](https://time.com/author/amanda-carpenter/) and [Beau Tremitiere](https://time.com/author/beau-tremitiere/) Mar 6, 2024 5:59 PM UTC Super Tuesday may have eliminated hope by millions of Nikki Haley voters that they could deny Donald Trump the Republican nomination, but if they stick together, they could keep him from returning to the White House in 2025\. And if they embrace the “fusion” strategy suggested by Senators Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin, they could move us past the dangerous two-party politics that has pushed our democracy to the brink. Haley voters, while not enough to change the outcome of the GOP primary, are pivotal for the general election. The nearly 300,000 votes cast for Haley in last week’s Michigan primary roughly doubled Biden’s margin of victory in 2020—and were almost 30 times greater than Trump’s 2016 margin. Haley’s 140,000 votes in the New Hampshire primary more than doubled Biden’s 2020 margin of victory—and were more than 50 times greater than the margin in 2016\. In the Super Tuesday states that have any chance of being competitive in November—[Colorado](https://www.270towin.com/states/Colorado), [Maine](https://www.270towin.com/states/Maine), [Minnesota](https://www.270towin.com/states/Minnesota), [North Carolina](https://www.270towin.com/states/North%5FCarolina), and [Virginia](https://www.270towin.com/states/Virginia)—Haley voters exceed recent general election margins of victory. Polling from swing states with primaries later in the year, like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, suggests the same pattern. That doesn’t mean these are automatic Biden votes. A large share of Haley’s supporters are [at least open](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/24/us/politics/nikki-haley-voters-trump-biden.html) to supporting Trump in November. And many inevitably will. But their opposition in the primary reflects their willingness to express some degree of independence from MAGA orthodoxy. They may not feel at home in today’s Republican Party, but they are not Democrats, either, and deserve better than to throw away their votes with a protest option. While write-in protest votes may privately comfort the conscience of disaffected voters, doing so is unproductive. So is voting for a [No Labels](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/02/no-labels-2024-election/677570/) ticket with [no chance](https://reason.com/2023/10/15/third-party-candidates-shouldnt-get-their-hopes-up/) of winning 270 electors. (Due to poorly designed legal rules from the early 19th century, a third-party ticket that wins **_some_** but not a majority of electors would likely trigger a [constitutional crisis](https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4480690-a-no-labels-unity-ticket-could-be-catastrophic-for-american-democracy/).) There is a better strategy, seriously [explored](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4203907-romney-manchin-explored-new-political-party/) by two prominent senators recognized for their efforts to bridge divides and defy partisan convention: Republican Sen. Mitt Romney and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. They proposed creating a new party to represent moderates and conservatives committed to democracy at home and abroad who do not identify with either major party today. Crucially, this party “would not . . . support a separate candidate,” but instead “pledge support to the \[Democratic or Republican\] candidate who came closest to aligning with its agenda.” This approach eliminates the principal concern with most third-party efforts—that a third candidate would siphon votes from the more closely aligned, competitive candidate and, as a result, potentially elect someone that most voters oppose. Instead, voters who do not fit neatly in either major party can help elect the better of the two viable options, while also remaining true to their distinctive political identity. By delivering a decisive bloc of votes—enough to make the difference between victory and defeat in a close race—this party can rightfully demand that the candidate prioritize their key issues in office, at the risk of losing their support in the future. This dynamic used to appear frequently in American elections, often by the term “[fusion](https://protectdemocracy.org/work/fusion-voting-explained/),” referring to multiple parties fusing together to support one candidate. Time and again, this has been a key strategy for groups out of sync with the major parties to win elections, build political power, and shape policymaking. The Liberty Party, Free Soil Party, and other antislavery minor parties used this approach to shatter the bipartisan, pro-slavery status quo in the 1840s-50s and then channeled their hard-won leverage into forming the antislavery Republican Party. Decades later, a multiracial alliance of Republicans and Populists fused together in North Carolina to dethrone Jim Crow Democrats, the only period after Reconstruction when segregationists lost control of a Southern state government. Unfortunately, many states have laws that make this approach difficult today. Elected officials and concerned citizens are already hard at work in [Michigan](https://fordschool.umich.edu/news/2023/schwarz-helps-form-new-common-sense-political-party), [New Jersey](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/us/politics/new-jersey-moderate-party.html), and a number of other states to fix these statutes and allow voters to test Romney and Manchin’s idea. For the millions of Haley voters who tried to wrest the Republican nomination away from a candidate who has [promised](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2023/12/11/donald-trump-dictator-one-day-reelected/71880010007/) to be a “dictator for one day,” this could be the beginning of a long-lasting cross-partisan coalition that protects democracy for the future. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6881656/nikki-haley-voters-2024-election/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6881656/nikki-haley-voters-2024-election/"},"headline":"In Defeat, Haley Voters Have Power to Build On","datePublished":"2024-03-06T17:59:49.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-30T13:22:04.238Z","description":"Nikki Haley's primary voters can be a powerful bloc if they continue to support an anti-authoritarian agenda.","url":"https://time.com/6881656/nikki-haley-voters-2024-election/","keywords":["politics","freelance"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt103ad591f37f181d/698a492547ca3841dc3bc16b/GettyImages-2056067740.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Amanda Carpenter","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/amanda-carpenter/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Beau Tremitiere","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/beau-tremitiere/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt103ad591f37f181d/698a492547ca3841dc3bc16b/GettyImages-2056067740.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Republican Presidential Candidate Nikki Haley Announces She's Suspending Her Campaign","caption":"Republican Presidential Candidate Nikki Haley Announces She's Suspending Her Campaign","creditText":"Sean Rayford-Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/politics/","name":"politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6881656/nikki-haley-voters-2024-election/","name":"In Defeat, Haley Voters Have Power to Build On"}}]}] ```