Why Nikki Haley still looms over the White House race

Good morning and welcome to US Election Countdown — it’s great to be back with you. Today we’re going over:

• Nikki Haley’s swing state voters

• ‘Wild’ Silicon Valley politics

• Biden’s latest polling boost

Nikki Haley’s voters could decide the election.

Though the former Republican presidential candidate said she’d vote for Trump, her supporters are no sure thing [free to read]. 

More than 150,000 Pennsylvanians — almost 17 per cent of the state’s Republican voters — cast ballots for Haley in the April primary despite the fact that she had already dropped out of the race. In the Philadelphia suburbs, she fared even better.

In 2020, Joe Biden took the state by only 80,000 votes. Right now Trump is leading by fewer than 2 percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average. So it very well could come down to the wire in November.

The FT’s Lauren Fedor recently travelled to the Philly suburbs, which have historically decided close elections in Pennsylvania, one of the most hotly contested swing states. She told me:

Several people I spoke to . . . raised concerns about Biden’s age and fitness for office. But others pointed to his handling of the economy as his fundamental weakness heading into November.

The Bidenomics narrative hasn’t worked in Pennsylvania, according to Christian Nascimento, chair of the local Republican party in affluent Montgomery County. This leaves an opening for Trump to campaign on kitchen table issues such as high grocery bills.

Craig Snyder, director of Haley Voters for Biden, a super Pac, has noticed a softening of support for the president among independents and acknowledges that the president has his work cut out for him: “I meet people all of the time who voted for Biden in 2020 who probably will this time, but they are not enthusiastic.” 

Cody Bright, a Haley primary voter from East Goshen, told Lauren that people around him were considering Trump because “everything was cheaper” during his presidency. Bright said he’d probably skip voting on election day:

There are a lot of people in my orbit that were Nikki Haley primary voters . . . that are not going to vote for Trump, and they are most likely not going to vote for Joe Biden.

Campaign clips: the latest election headlines

• Hunter Biden’s trial has provided a raw and excruciating glimpse into the Biden family’s turmoil following Beau Biden’s 2015 death. [Free to read]

• Trump held his first major rally since becoming a convicted felon, and tried to exploit local grievances over inflation in the battleground state of Nevada. 

• The US Federal Reserve will lower rates just once this year, according to academic economists polled by FT-Chicago Booth, as central bankers face political heat over when to cut rates.

• Biden is revamping his campaign messaging to calm Democratic “bed-wetters”. (Politico) 

• North Dakota governor Doug Burgum has emerged as a safe potential vice-presidential pick for Trump, though he’s untested nationally. (NYT)

• The Chicago Police Department is preparing for potential political unrest at the Democratic National Convention in August, vowing “this will not be 1968”, when officers beat protesters and journalists. (Chicago Tribune)

On the latest episode of the new podcast series from the FT’s Martin Wolf, our chief economics commentator speaks to the author and journalist Anne Applebaum. Listen here for their discussion on the seismic political shifts in America and Europe.

Behind the scenes

Trump raised $12mn at a San Francisco fundraiser for top venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, heralding a shift in Silicon Valley politics.

With tickets priced at $50,000 to $300,000 a head, tech leaders gathered at the $20mn mansion of valley investor David Sacks, situated on the “billionaires’ row” in San Francisco’s lavish Pacific Heights neighbourhood. 

The Democratic bastion has begun warming to Trump, and the event’s guests couldn’t get enough of him, especially those in the cryptocurrency sector who see Biden’s administration as hostile to the industry.

The audience was “eating out of [the ex-president’s] hands”, according to Ryan Selkis, chief executive of crypto intelligence group Messari:

It felt like a particularly wild moment in Silicon Valley politics . . . The blue wall has been breached.

Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican party official and lawyer whose firm represents Trump, said on X that executives from crypto exchange Coinbase as well as the Winklevoss twins were present. 

Senior Palantir executive Jacob Helberg, a former Biden backer who recently donated $1mn to Trump’s campaign, called the fundraiser “proof that president Trump’s campaign is creating a generational realignment among technology founders . . . and makes him more competitive in even the most traditionally blue communities”.

Datapoints

Voters have continually said that they trust Trump to handle the economy over Biden, but the president is closing in on his opponent.

In the June edition of the FT-Michigan Ross poll, Biden was just four points behind Trump, down from an 11-point gap in February. The result suggests that voters are beginning to give the president more credit for strong economic data, boosting his re-election prospects.

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The survey, which was conducted right after Trump’s criminal conviction, found that 41 per cent of US voters said they trusted Trump more on economic matters, while 37 per cent favoured Biden. Seventeen per cent didn’t trust either.

Biden has a slight advantage among older voters, with 42 per cent of those over 55 preferring the president economically versus Trump’s 41 per cent. But the picture looks much bleaker for Biden among younger voters. Trump was trusted more by 42 per cent of voters aged 18 to 54 on the economy, compared with Biden’s 32 per cent.

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While it seems that Biden’s economic message is increasingly resonating with voters — he still faces tough headwinds. With the economy as the top issue for voters, about 80 per cent of respondents cited inflation as one of their top three sources of financial stress.

“To win the election, you have to convince voters that you will do the best job with the economy,” said Erik Gordon of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

Viewpoints

• Democrats need to re-embrace patriotism, argues Rana Foroohar.

• The FT’s Lex column points out that Trump is doing better than Biden on TikTok, with 5.5mn followers to the Democrat’s 365,000.

• Edward Luce ponders whether the surprise loss of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary majority foreshadows anything for populists in other democracies.  

• Nevada’s Republican governor Joe Lombardo attacked Biden for failing to tame inflation as the states residents struggle under high costs. (NYT)

• Patrick Jenkins likens the US budget to an aggressive leveraged buyout. But the presidential candidates aren’t promising fiscal discipline — and Trump will be a long way from Republicans’ traditional fiscal conservatism.