Never Trump voters? Nikki Haley tells them to vote Trump 'for the sake of our nation'

MILWAUKEE — Of all the Tuesday night speakers at the Republican National Convention, Nikki Haley landed a particularly deflating blow to President Joe Biden's campaign.

Haley is the former South Carolina governor who served as U.S. ambassador during the first two years of Trump's White House term. More importantly, she was the last of Trump's GOP primary rivals to bow out of the nomination contest.

But not before she coalesced a so-called "never Trump" bloc of voters in a slew of state primaries. In Florida, Trump's home state, Haley drew almost 15% of the vote. In swing state Michigan, she drew more than a quarter of ballots.

That elicited concerns among Republicans, and hope among Democrats, that those recalcitrant GOP voters might sit out the November election, potentially proving costly to Trump in battleground states.

Vice President Kamala Harris planned to campaign in Palm Beach County this week and meet with Republican and independent women voters. The visit was postponed on Saturday following a shooting at a Make America Great Again rally in which Trump was wounded and an attendee, firefighter Corey Comperatore, was killed while shielding his wife and daughter.

In her convention speech, Haley said the offer to have her deliver a primetime speech was "gracious" and she happily accepted for the purpose of "strongly" urging those skeptical GOP voters to cast ballots for Trump.

"I'll start by making one thing perfectly clear — Donald Trump has my strong endorsement. Period," Haley said to chants of "We want Trump."

Haley then said she wanted to direct her remarks to the Republicans who supported and voted for her. Haley insisted a vote for Biden is a vote for "President" Harris.

"After seeing the debate, everyone knows it's true," she said. "If we have four more years of Biden, or a single day of Harris, our country will be badly worse off. For the sake of our nation we have to go with Donald Trump."

She added that she understands there are Americans who "don't always agree" with the Republican presidential nominee. Her message, she insisted, is party rank-and-file voters need not "agree 100% of the time" with the nominee in order to vote for him.

Haley acknowledged that she has broken from Trump on various issues but "we agree more often than we disagree."

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.