Former United Nations Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley raised $2.6 million in the 48 hours after Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, her campaign announced on Thursday.
Nearly half of the fundraising total, $1.2 million, came in the hours after former President Donald Trump threatened to blacklist her backers, saying anyone who donated to the former South Carolina governor’s campaign would be “permanently barred from the MAGA camp.”
“Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them, and will not accept them, because we Put America First, and ALWAYS WILL!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site Truth Social.
Haley has sought to fundraise off of Trump’s threats, sending texts to voters highlighting the former president’s blacklist comment and offering T-Shirts to donors that read “Barred. Permanently.” In a post on X, Haley linked to a site where people who donate $5 can get the shirt.
“Trump’s scheme blew up in his face,” Haley spokesperson AnnMarie Graham-Barnes wrote in a statement. “The contributions to the Haley campaign are pouring in—proof that people are sick of the drama and are rallying behind Nikki’s vision for a strong and proud America.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ exit from the race just before New Hampshire’s primary left Haley as the last major candidate challenging Trump for the GOP nomination in 2024.
Despite Haley riding a wave of momentum in polling ahead of the first nominating contests of the election year, Trump still won handily in both the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Regardless, Haley has vowed to stay in the race – even as national and upcoming primary state polls show the former president with a solid grip on Republican voters.
As a result, the last remaining notable GOP contenders have ramped up public criticism of one another – with Trump frequently referring to Haley as “Birdbrain” and Haley calling Trump “unhinged" in an interview with Fox News on Friday.
When asked by anchor Dana Perino if she's spoken to RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel about the the RNC backtracking on a resolution to declare Trump the presumptive nominee after his Iowa and New Hampshire wins, Haley said she expressed her disappointment to McDaniel before laying into the former president.
"I let her know how disappointed I was," Haley said. "Let's look at the last 48 hours. First of all, you had election night, Trump gets on stage and he throws a temper tantrum talking about revenge but he says nothing about the American people."
"Then he goes and says that he's going to ban anyone from MAGA that donates to me," she continued, adding: "That's a president who is supposed to serve every person in America, and you are deciding you will have a club and actually ban people from being in and out of your club? And then he goes and encourages the members of the RNC and tries to push them into saying that he is the nominee in the race. They got so much pushback that he had to backtrack from it.
"I mean, he's totally unhinged," Haley added. "But at the end of the day, our focus is still on the American people."