Expert: Koch Network’s Endorsement of Nikki Haley ‘Too Little, Too Late’

Media Contacts: Emily Gowdey-Backus, director of media relations and Nancy Cicco, assistant director of media relations 

Sure now to throw vast sums of the family’s estimated $60 billion fortune behind GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, the Koch Network’s endorsement of her campaign Tuesday comes a year too late, according to UMass Lowell politics expert John Cluverius, who is available for interviews. 

A force in U.S. libertarian-conservative movements for some 20 years, the Koch Network backs political action committees and think tanks financed by oil industrialist and businessman Charles Koch. The network did not endorse former President Trump’s run for office in 2016 and stayed out of the fray during the 2020 campaign.

Endorsing Haley, a former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, signals a lack of strategy by Trump’s detractors in the 2024 campaign, according to Cluverius, associate director of UMass Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion.

“Anti-Trump forces are treating the 2024 primary campaign like they did the 2016 campaign – on the assumption the to-and-fro of the nominating contest would produce a definitive anti-Trump candidate. Instead, Donald Trump has consolidated his support among Republicans as his primary opponents have divided Trump’s opposition,” Cluverius said.

Despite Trump’s legal troubles, GOP anti-Trump coalitions such as the Koch Network have missed their moment, according to Cluverius. 

“Republicans are probably stuck with Trump and have missed many opportunities to sideline the former president. Despite the fact she’s rising in New Hampshire polls, the time to get behind Haley was a year ago, and now, it seems, this endorsement will be too little, too late.”

An authority on U.S. politics and political methodology, Cluverius is an associate professor in UMass Lowell’s political science department. To arrange an interview with him, contact  Emily Gowdey-Backus or Nancy Cicco.