New York — Nikki Haley is running for the Republican presidential nomination against Donald Trump in 2024, and billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin is supporting her.
Griffin's spokesman Zia Ahmed said Griffin gave $5 million to a Haley super PAC in December and January. Haley's second payment came in early January, before the Iowa caucuses, when she finished third behind Trump and DeSantis.
After Griffin acknowledged supporting Haley at an investment conference in Miami on Tuesday, the funds were revealed. His support for Haley, who lost by double digits to Trump in New Hampshire last week, her best chance of blocking Trump's nomination, remained unclear.
Despite her losses in Iowa and New Hampshire and a difficult route ahead, Haley says her performance has proved the strength of her candidacy and that she will move on to the battle in her home state of South Carolina on February 24.
She's holding fundraisers this week and next to boost her campaign. “It’s a narrower road than it was eight weeks ago,” Griffin said Tuesday of Haley's nomination chances.
Griffin subsequently made a rare statement Tuesday praising the former UN ambassador as having “a tremendous track record of leadership” and said, “America would be well served by someone with her foreign policy credentials and policy priorities in the White House.” His contributions would focus on other elections, he said.
While voters decide on the Republican Party's nominee for President, I will continue to actively support U.S. House and Senate candidates prioritizing economic freedom and a strong defense of America at home and abroad,” Griffin stated.
Griffin, a mega-donor who had admired Trump's economic ideas but not his presidential campaigns, kept out of the 2024 presidential election to see contenders oppose him.
Griffin praised DeSantis before he ran last year, so he was anticipated to back him. Griffin did not give to him after his debut in May and was uneasy about his Florida school gender and sexuality policy and his confrontation with Disney.
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