Top Biden officials to donors: We can win over Haley voters

Top Biden campaign officials told a gathering of donors on Friday that the campaign believes it can win over a significant portion of Nikki Haley voters — and that it can do so by emphasizing the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy.

Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon made the case during a meeting put together by the Biden National Finance Committee in New York City. In her presentation, O’Malley Dillon argued that results out of state Republican primaries — where some voters backed Haley even though she had dropped out of the presidential race — was proof that Haley supporters were getable, according to three people who were in the room and were granted anonymity to discuss a private meeting.

O’Malley Dillon also showed Democratic donors and bundlers a newly released digital ad, which spliced together footage of former Trump mocking Haley and rejecting her supporters.

“If you voted for Nikki Haley, Donald Trump doesn’t want your vote,” the ad says. “Save America. Join us.”

Wooing Haley and anti-Trump voters — and their growing importance within the Biden strategy to regain a lead over Trump in the polls — dovetails with the Biden campaign’s broader messaging strategy to center democracy and the threats, they say, Trump poses to it. Members of Biden’s finance team have also made private overtures to Haley donors, though they were not discussed during Friday’s meeting.

“They believe, as do I, that there are a number of Republicans out there who supported Haley who don’t want to support Trump,” said Dick Harpootlian, a South Carolina state senator and Democratic donor who attended the meeting. “Anyone who was comfortable with her would be made uncomfortable by him.”

Biden spoke at the Democratic donor gathering Friday morning, delivering his usual stump speech and attacking Trump as “the most un-democratic president since the Civil War.” The donors — many of whom attended a $26 million fundraiser Thursday evening that also featured former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton — described a broadly cheerful meeting, buoyed by the slight uptick in Biden’s approval ratings and the enormous cash advantage Biden has built over Trump.

But even if the Biden campaign sees opportunities in gaining these types of voters, it is also wary of other threats on the horizon.

One person in the room, granted anonymity to discuss a private meeting, noted that the campaign focused specifically on the threats posted by third-party candidates in a presentation on messaging and polling, led by campaign communications director Michael Tyler and pollster Molly Murphy. The pair noted, this person said, that voters interested in voting third party don’t like Trump or Biden, but they “dislike Trump a lot more, so the strategy is to tell them, ‘a vote for a third-party candidate will elect Donald Trump.’”

“It’s an acknowledgement that this is becoming more of an issue than it was even just three months ago,” the person said. “They didn’t mention [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] by name, but there’s clearly a concern there and they’re starting to focus some efforts in defining these third-party candidates.”

The Democratic National Committee is, indeed, expanding its efforts to take on third-party candidates, particularly RFK Jr., who has polled at double-digits in some national surveys. In recent weeks, the DNC hired a pair of top communications aides focused solely on it.

But a Biden campaign adviser pushed back on the notion that their focus on third-party candidates is new. They cited the efforts by other Democratic groups to target No Labels, another third-party effort that hasn’t landed a candidate yet.