Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said the GOP was like a "ship with a hole in it" as results from last night's Michigan primary came in.
Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, trailed former President Donald Trump by over 40 points in the state primary, marking her fifth consecutive state loss to the former president this primary season.
The former South Carolina governor joined CNN's Dana Bash Tuesday night to discuss primary results.
"You look back in 2012, Michigan was such a bright spot," Haley said of the state. "I was there. They had just passed right to work. They were winning seats up and down the ticket. It was just a great time for Michigan."
"But ever since Donald Trump became president, they’ve lost the governor’s mansion; they’ve lost the state House; they’ve lost the state Senate," she said, adding Minnesota had experienced similar state losses since Trump won the 2016 presidential election. "I was in Colorado earlier today, they haven’t had a Republican get over 45% statewide since Donald Trump was president in 2016."
Haley said state losses for Republicans was a consistent pattern.
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The lone Republican challenger then criticized Trump's performance in past state elections this primary season.
“You’re seeing the same thing whether you look at all the early states, Donald Trump didn’t get 40% of any of the Republican primary vote, it is a problem,” Haley said. “He’s not bringing people into the party, he’s pushing people out of the party."
Haley cited a 10 percent is my watch a Twitter with me loss of registered Republicans in Colorado since Trump was elected president.
“Look at what’s happened to the Republican Party," she continued. "The Republican Party is now not just changing based on tone. It’s changing based on policy."
She then threw criticism towards Trump's talking points throughout his 2024 presidential campaign.
“Donald Trump’s not talking anything about shrinking government, stopping spending, cutting out the waste — none of that," Haley said. "And then he’s changed the whole idea of peace through strength. We used to always talk about the strength of our alliances. Now you’ve got Donald Trump basically saying he’s going to tell Putin to go and invade our allies who stood with us after 9/11. It’s all a shift.”
Burns asked why Republican voters were overwhelmingly throwing support behind Trump's re-election efforts over her campaign, to which Haley said the Republican Party was "in a ship with a hole in it."
"We can either go down with the ship and watch the country go socialist Left, or we can see that we need to take the life raft and move in a new direction," she said. “That’s what this is about. It is very telling when now the RNC is not about winning races up and down the ticket."
The former South Carolina governor also took aim at the Republican National Committee (RNC), saying they were "[all] about Trump."
Trump and Haley will face off in the Michigan, Idaho, and Missouri caucuses on March 2, followed by 16 more state primaries during Super Tuesday on March 5.
