Americans for Prosperity Action, a libertarian conservative super PAC affiliated with billionaire Charles Koch and his late brother David Koch, is endorsing Nikki Haley in the GOP presidential primary race.
Here is a taste of the press release:
At a time in our country when millions of Americans are struggling, broken politics have made it nearly impossible to advance needed solutions to record inflation, border security, skyrocketing health care costs, and more. The good news is that AFP Action is in a position to do something about it.
We know to elect better leaders, we need better candidates. And that means we need to engage earlier and in more primaries. As the presidential candidates set the tone for the entire election – we decided earlier this year to start our work in primaries at the top of the ticket: the Republican presidential primary.
As many of you know, AFP Action has never engaged in a presidential election before, but as we said in February, to write a new chapter for our country, we need to turn the page on the past. Donald Trump and Joe Biden will only further perpetuate the country’s downward spiral in politics. Furthermore, a significant majority of voters want somebody new. The American people have shown they’re ready to move on from the current political era, so AFP Action will help them do that.
As you know, this summer and into the fall, we have been engaging voters and watching the candidates, seeing how they campaign, listening to what issues and themes they focus on, how they articulate their principles and policy positions, manage their operation, and whether they resonate with voters.
Since the announcement in February, Americans for Prosperity has already reached out – either through door knocks or phone calls – to more than 6 million voters to talk to them about the issues they care about and the candidates they support to understand what’s important to them and how they’ll ultimately decide who they support in next year’s primary. AFP Action has since acquired that data to analyze it as part of our decision making process and put it to work behind a candidate.
The results are incredibly encouraging: The American people are ready to move on, with nearly 75% of Republican primary voters saying they are open to supporting a candidate other than Donald Trump. In addition, nearly 60% of the Republican voters AFP spoke with who have never voted in a primary or caucus say they are “extremely enthusiastic” to vote for the first time.
It’s now time to help rally those voters behind a candidate who can win the primary and win the general election.
At the outset of our strategy, we made clear that we would be business-like in our decision. We would support a candidate capable of turning the page on Washington’s toxic culture – and a candidate who can win. And last night, we concluded that analysis.
That candidate is Nikki Haley.
AFP Action is proud to throw our full support behind Nikki Haley, who offers America the opportunity to turn the page on the current political era, to win the Republican primary and defeat Joe Biden next November. She has what it takes to lead a policy agenda to take on our nation’s biggest challenges and help ensure our country’s best days are ahead. With the grassroots and data capability we bring to bear in this race, no other organization is better equipped to help her do it.
When we set out to change the broken politics of Washington, we made clear that we would back a candidate who could turn the page on today’s toxic culture and lead our country forward. But you can’t advance good policy unless you win. Our internal polling confirms what our activists are hearing and seeing from voters in the early primary states: Nikki Haley is in the best position to defeat Donald Trump in the primaries. Between her surging to second place in the polls since August and being well positioned amongst supporters of the other candidates, she is in a strong position to gather more support. In addition, our internal polling consistently shows that Nikki Haley is by far the strongest candidate Republicans could put up against Joe Biden in a general election – winning every key battleground state and up nationally by nearly 10 points. While our polling shows Donald Trump loses to Joe Biden, Nikki Haley outperforms Trump by 8 to 14 points in the key Presidential battleground states.
In sharp contrast to recent elections that were dominated by the negative baggage of Donald Trump and in which good candidates lost races that should have been won, Nikki Haley, at the top of the ticket, would boost candidates up and down the ballot, winning the key independent and moderate voters that Trump has no chance to win.
However, our engagement in politics has always been about more than winning elections. It’s about the opportunity to change policy and improve lives. The reason we’re joining this fight to help elect Nikki Haley isn’t just because we know she can win; it’s because of what she’ll do once she does. Our country is being ripped apart by extremes on both sides. The moment we face requires a tested leader with the governing judgment and policy experience to pull our nation back from the brink. Nikki Haley is that leader.
Nikki Haley has a long track record of empowering people with more freedom and opportunity and supporting policies that favor competition over control. As Governor, Haley’s work to expand education opportunities, improve access and lower costs in our health care system, and protect freedom and flexibility in our workforce shows she shares our belief that the solutions to our most pressing challenges lie in free people – not heavy-handed government. While we don’t agree with anyone on every issue, Nikki Haley, by far, offers the best opportunity to improve the lives of all Americans.
The foremost challenge confronting our nation, affecting every American, is the economy. Nikki Haley presents a bold and robust strategy to tackle the inflation that is making everything more expensive for American families – addressing the out-of-control government spending and simplifying the tax code to benefit the American people rather than special interests. Simultaneously, she has the courage to advocate for reforms to an entitlement system that makes promises it can’t keep.
Nikki Haley will have the full weight and scope of AFP Action’s unmatched grassroots army and resources to help her earn the support of Americans to become the next President of the United States of America.
AFP has been speaking with millions of voters at their doorsteps and on the phone already this year. They have also been targeting a unique universe of voters who vote reliably in general elections but not in the primaries or caucuses. AFP Action has now acquired that data and will encourage a significant number of these general election voters to vote in this primary. So far, enthusiasm to participate is far beyond what we expected.
With the largest grassroots operation in the country and a presence in all fifty states, AFP Action’s endorsement will put thousands of AFP Action activists and grassroots leaders into the field – with a focus on the early primary states – knocking on doors and urging voters to support Nikki Haley.
Additionally, in the coming days, we’ll launch extensive mail, digital, and connected television campaigns to supplement those on-the-ground efforts. As we’ve proven in past elections, a layered approach of digital and mail, combined with that crucial one-on-one conversation at the door or on the phone, is the best way to engage and persuade voters.
Read the entire release here.
The Trump campaign has already responded. Here is The New York Times:
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said in a statement, “Americans for Prosperity — the political arm of the China First, America Last movement — has chosen to endorse a pro-China, open borders, and globalist candidate in Nikki ‘Birdbrain’ Haley,” adding that no amount of “shady money” would stop Mr. Trump from winning the Republican nomination and the election.
This is a huge boost to the Haley campaign: