More than 150,000 Republicans voted for Nikki Haley in Pa.’s presidential primary

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley dropped out of the Republican presidential race in early March but still received more than 16% of the vote in Pennsylvania’s Republican presidential primary Tuesday, a sign of discontent with former President Donald Trump as the GOP nominee.

The vote for Haley, whose name appeared on the ballot despite her campaign suspension, was strongest in Southeastern Pennsylvania, with Montgomery County giving Haley nearly a quarter of the vote.

Those areas, heavily Democratic and home to many more moderate Republicans, are counties where Trump lost by his largest margins in 2020.

“There is a non-trivial, significant minority of Republicans who are not going to vote for Donald Trump,” former U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) predicted of the Pennsylvania general election.

Toomey was part of the 16% of voters who voted for Haley on Tuesday and said he’ll probably write in her name in November. Toomey was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack.

It’s unclear what the impact may be on Trump in the fall. Many of the registered Republicans who voted for Haley may be moderate Republicans who had already turned against Trump, voted for President Joe Biden last time around, and plan to do the same in the general election.

With the election more than six months away, a large number of Republican Haley voters will also likely come around to Trump in a head-to-head matchup with Biden. And others will vote third party or won’t vote at all.

Still, it’s a considerable slice of the electorate voicing a protest vote in a state where only Republicans can cast GOP primary ballots. Haley netted 26% of the vote in Michigan’s open primary in late March and 13% in Wisconsin’s in early April.

“There’s been people who say all Haley supporters are Democrats in disguise,” said Kenneth Scheffler, executive director of Haley Voters for Biden. “I think there’s 156,000 Haley supporters in Pennsylvania that put that lie aside.”

Polling and conversations with voters reveal more of a mixed bag. About half of Haley voters interviewed by the New York Times after she dropped out, said they thought they’d end up voting for the Republican in November.

At the polls on Tuesday, Haley voters interviewed said they were frustrated with their options. They were divided on what they’ll do in November.

» READ MORE: 'We’re doing this again’: The 2024 presidential rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is officially underway in Pa.

Eric Miller, a registered Republican for 40 years, voted Tuesday at Welsh Valley Middle School in Montgomery County for Haley. Miller, who works in information technology, voted for Biden over Trump in the last election and said Biden will likely get his vote again.

“I don’t like him,” Miller said of Trump. “I don’t think he was a valid president. I think he’s a danger to our democracy.”

Jeffrey Gladstein, a 73-year-old Republican voting in Narberth, cast his vote for Haley, saying he couldn’t stomach casting another ballot for Trump after the role the former president played in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

“That was a threshold after which I cannot vote for him anymore,” said Gladstein, who immigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union 45 years ago.

Gladstein voted for Trump in 2020, even though he did not believe he was presidential material, because he supported his policies on deregulation and energy independence. He said he’s unlikely to vote for Trump or Biden in the general election.

There were also signs of Democratic dissatisfaction with the top of the ticket Tuesday as Philadelphia and its surrounding counties saw an increase in write-in votes in the Democratic primary compared to 2020.

Liz Havey, former chairwoman of the Montgomery County Republican Committee, who had stopped by to check on poll watchers in Narberth Tuesday, said she is “cautiously optimistic” about a Trump victory in November.

It will depend, she said, on whether those Republican and independent voters, like Gladstein, come home to the party on Election Day.

“I think there will be enough,” she said.

» READ MORE: Protesters urged Pa. Dems to cast ‘uncommitted’ votes against Joe Biden. The primary showed an uptick in write-ins.

Trump has caused lingering divisions in the state Republican party. Many Republicans blamed Trump for losses in Pennsylvania in 2022 and 2023.

Philadelphia GOP party chair Vince Fennerty, who backed Haley, predicted in December a down-ballot “bloodbath” in the general election if Trump became the nominee. After Haley dropped out in March, he said he was already seeing signs of the party coalescing around Trump, including in suburban urban areas.

Trump was asked in an interview Tuesday with 6abc how he explains Democratic gains in Pennsylvania in recent years. He responded by saying “Pennsylvania is a very special place to me,” and then claimed he is leading “substantially in the polls there and we’re leading everywhere else.”

A recent Bloomberg poll of seven swing states showed Trump with a 2-point lead in Pennsylvania and larger leads in all other swing states except Michigan, where he narrowly trailed Biden.

Biden’s campaign has made some attempts at trying to appeal to Haley voters, including a digital ad that showed Trump calling Haley “bird brain,” and “a very angry person.” The ad invited Haley supporters to join the Biden team.

The Haley for Biden group has a goal of raising about $2 million to do outreach targeted to urban, suburban, and college-educated voters in swing states.

Scheffler, whose group plans to do targeted outreach in suburban parts of swing states this summer, said the Biden campaign should do more targeted outreach to those voters. He thinks there’s a natural alignment between Biden’s increase in domestic energy production and his role in pushing for funding to Ukraine that appeal to Haley voters.

“He’s not gonna be Nikki Haley but it’s also true that Donald Trump isn’t Nikki Haley,” Scheffler said. “There’s more he can do to engage with this audience and we hope that he will go beyond listening but actually trying to incorporate Haley supporters’ views into his agenda.”

Staff writers Mike Newall and Rita Giordano contributed to this article.