Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley backed her one-time GOP rival Donald Trump Sunday in a new opinion piece, arguing the ex-commander in chief is “clearly the better choice” over Vice President Kamala Harris.
Haley urged undecided voters to look at both candidates’ policy proposals, which she said clearly show Trump as the better option in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published two days before Election Day.
The former South Carolina governor wrote that she agrees with Trump most of the time — though he isn’t perfect — and disagrees with Harris “nearly all of the time.”
“That makes this an easy call,” she wrote as she slammed the Biden-Harris administration for several issues facing the country, including frustrating inflation, the soaring national debt and poor national security.
She pointed to the porous southern border, chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia invading Ukraine and the unchecked power of Iran and China under Biden’s watch as the numerous problems the country has faced the last four years.
“The world is unsafe under Biden-Harris, and we shouldn’t expect that to change under a Harris administration,” the former US Ambassador to the United Nations under Trump penned.
She admitted that Trump will do some things she doesn’t like if he wins a second term, but noted “no politician gets everything right.”
“For those of us clear-eyed enough to see Mr. Trump’s flaws and honest enough to acknowledge them, the question is whether we’re better off with his policies or his opponent’s,” Haley wrote.
“On taxes, spending, inflation, immigration, energy and national security, the candidates are miles apart. And Mr. Trump is clearly the better choice.”
Haley, 52, ran against Trump during the GOP primary but dropped out in March when Republican voters overwhelmingly showed they still supported the 45th president to run for the White House a third straight time.
She had slammed Trump on the campaign trail and argued she was the only GOP candidate who could top President Biden before the 81-year-old Democrat dropped his reelection bid.
Polling has shown Trump, 78, and Harris, 60, are in a dead heat in numerous swing states that are expected to decide which candidate reaches the 270 electoral votes needed to win the race.
Haley wrote she was speaking to a group of voters who have mixed feelings about Trump, but will ultimately determine if the former president gets back into the Oval Office on Tuesday.
“They like much of what he did as president and agree with most of his policies,” she wrote. “But they dislike his tone and can’t condone his excesses, such as his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021.”
“To that group, I’ll point out that Mr. Trump isn’t the only one on the ballot,” she went on to argue. “This election isn’t a referendum on him. It’s a choice between him and Kamala Harris.”
Given the options, she urged the undecided voters to put aside Trump’s “excesses” and see him as she does — as the “better choice.”
