Could the Haley factor be Trump's biggest obstacle by November? 

Despite dismissing Nikki Haley as his running mate, Trump can’t dismiss “the Haley factor.”   

What is the Haley factor? Someone who can pull in additional conservative-to-moderate voters, whom Trump is leaving on the table. So why is this the Haley factor? Because she’s already won these votes in the states that will decide 2024.

The last presidential election was much closer than most realize. The 7 million votes that separated Biden from Trump, were also Biden’s combined majorities in California and New York. In the other 48 states, the candidates ran effectively even. 

Six of the 25 states won by Biden — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — were decided by less than 312,000 votes in total. Four of those — Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Wisconsin — by less than 77,000 total votes. Flip that relative handful of votes, and the election would have had a different outcome. 

Given that 2020 was so close and that Trump is still a divisive figure — thus making additional votes harder to come by — the question is where he can pick up the needed votes. The most logical constituencies are the ones he already dominates: conservatives and Republicans, extending out toward right-leaning independents. Going in the opposite direction, that was the route Biden took in 2020 when he chose Kamala Harris as his vice president.

For example, Republicans made up 36 percent of voters in 2020, and Trump lost 6 percent of them. If Trump could cut his Republican losses in half, that would be worth about 1.7 million additional votes. That may not seem like much, but it's more than 20 times the combined margins of the four decisive battleground states that Trump lost most narrowly. 

However, we do not need to rely just on hypotheticals. We have actuals from the pivotal battleground states.

This year, five of the six battleground states had primaries in which Biden and Trump both appeared on the ballots (Trump did not appear on Nevada’s). The results were a mixed bag: in three (Arizona, Georgia and Michigan), Trump’s vote total topped Biden’s; in four (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin), Republicans’ vote total topped Democrats’.

But what really stands out is the Haley factor. While never a serious threat to Trump and never winning huge totals, she was a consistent vote-getter. Haley’s lowest vote percentage in the five states’ Republican primaries against Trump was 12.7 percent in Wisconsin. Her highest was 26.6 percent in Michigan. 

Small? Yes. Inconsequential? No.  

So there were enough Haley voters in each of those five states to flip them all to Trump in 2020. Adding in Haley’s votes, and Trump would have won Wisconsin by 56,000 votes, Georgia by 66,000 votes, Pennsylvania by 75,000 votes, Arizona by 100,000 votes, and Michigan by 143,000 votes. 

But hasn’t Trump made it clear he isn’t considering her and hasn’t Haley still not endorsed him?

First, this is politics, and this race is for the presidency. Second, any animosity between Trump and Haley would have to pale in comparison to that between Biden and Harris. Harris accused Biden of cozying up to racists in a Democratic debate — certainly, both Joe and Jill Biden were reportedly “blindsided” by the attack. And Harris brought far less to the table than Haley would. Recall that Harris had no federal executive experience and never even made it to the 2020 primaries. 

Sure, the argument could be made that a good portion of those who voted for Haley will still vote for Trump anyway in a general election against Biden. The other side can be argued too, that Haley’s supporters will not follow her to Trump no matter what she says.  

However, 6 percent of Republicans did not support Trump in 2020, and just half of those might be enough for Trump to win. This does not take into account the effect Haley could have on independents, minorities (where current polling shows Trump is already making inroads) and women (a group Trump lost by 11 points in 2020). 

The most easily dismissed threat is that some would desert Trump if he picked someone like Haley. To anyone other than those in the House’s fragging faction of bomb-throwers, who have reduced Republicans’ majority to impotency, Haley or her equivalent is a conservative.  

To Trump’s real supporters, who have given him the party’s nomination three consecutive times (a feat last accomplished by Franklin D. Roosevelt for the Democrats) his bona fides are solid. They would give him the benefit of the doubt on almost any running mate in a contest with Biden.

Right now, this looks to be a tight race — all of Trump’s races have been. Every vote will matter and be hard to come by. And Trump has arguably the race’s biggest wildcard yet to play: his running mate.  

Nikki Haley herself may not be that card, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Gov. Doug Burgum (R-N.D.) and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (R-Hawaii) are also frequently mentioned. 

But the role Haley played — and more importantly, the votes she won in the primaries — is just what Trump needs to ensure victory.  

Call it the Haley factor — it could be the difference between 2016 and 2020 for Trump.  

J.T. Young was a professional staffer in the House and Senate from 1987-2000, served in the Department of Treasury and Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004-2023