Nikki Haley supporters in Iowa are twice as likely to vote for Joe Biden as they are Donald Trump, should she not win the Republican nomination.
The poll was conducted ahead of the Iowa caucuses by NBC News, the Des Moines Register, and Iowa pollster Selzer & Co.
The pollsters asked likely Iowa caucus-goers, "If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee in the general election in November, would you vote for him, vote for Joe Biden, vote for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., or vote for some other third-party candidate?"
Across the board, just 11 percent of Republican caucus-goes said they would flip and vote for Biden if Trump is the nominee. When looking only at Haley supporters, that number jumped to a whopping 43 percent.
Just 23 percent of Haley's supporters said they would vote for Trump over Biden.
In contrast, 64 percent of DeSantis supporters said that they would vote for Trump if he is the nominee.
NBC News reports, "These new findings from the latest NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of Iowa further illustrate the degree to which Haley is bringing in support from independents, Democrats and Republicans who have been uneasy with Trump’s takeover of the GOP. Fully half of her Iowa caucus supporters are independents or crossover Democrats, according to the survey results. Overall, Haley took 20% for second place in the survey, compared to 48% for Trump."
"The poll also shows three-quarters of caucusgoers believing Trump can defeat Biden despite the former president’s legal challenges. But again, a majority of Haley’s supporters think it will be nearly impossible for Trump to win," the report added.
Pollster J. Ann Selzer told NBC, “Haley is consolidating the anti-Trump vote. She does well with the people who define themselves as anti-Trump.”
Haley has faced strong pushback from much of the Republican Party for her neoconservative and hawkish policies.
Last week, Senator Rand Paul launched a #NeverNikki campaign.
Sen. Paul wrote, "As I look over the field, I don’t think I yet have a first choice, but I do know one thing: count me in as #NeverNikki!"
The Kentucky lawmaker specifically pointed to her funding from the military-industrial complex, writing that she "personally received millions of dollars from the arms merchants who benefit from the war, a conflict of interest that undergirds her eagerness for foreign military intervention. This position isn’t new either - as governor of South Carolina she gave tax dollars to those same arms merchants, and they showered her with campaign contributions and a seat on their board when she left office."
In 2019, Haley was elected to Boeing's board of directors months after leaving her post in the Trump administration. At the time, she had a net worth less than $1 million.
"Post her tenure, reports surfaced that Haley boosted her fortune eight-fold — to $8 million — after leaving the Trump administration," the New York Post reported at the time.
Soon after, the former UN ambassador purchased a $2.4 million waterfront estate on Kiawah Island, South Carolina.
Sen. Paul's posts continued, "While most others were decrying the mistakes of the past 20 years, and fighting for an America First foreign policy, Nikki Haley was aligning herself with and declaring her foreign policy allies to be John McCain and Lindsey Graham."
