GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — With just one day to go before Michigan's presidential primaries, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley made a stop in Grand Rapids Monday to rally supporters before many go to the polls.
Haley pitched herself as the choice for those not committed to Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump or Democratic President Joe Biden.
"The majority of Americans disapprove of Joe Biden and the majority of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump," Haley told supporters.
"We need someone who can go in put in eight years' worth of work day and night to focus on the solutions of the future and not continue to be focused on the past," Haley said.
It comes as Haley has vowed to stay in the race, despite not having won any primary contests so far and after suffering a loss in her home state of South Carolina on Saturday.
In an interview with 13 ON YOUR SIDE, Haley explained why she's digging in.
"People don't want to be given a candidate, they want to be able to choose their candidate," Haley said. "We're going to have 21 states and territories now start to vote. We want their voices heard. We want them to be able to weigh in."
In portraying herself as an alternative, Haley pointed to the current state of Michigan's Republican Party, which now sits out of majority power in Lansing and is currently immersed in a legal battle between two wings of the party and two people claiming to be the party's leader.
"Michigan was a beacon," Haley told 13 ON YOUR SIDE. "Everybody was bragging about all that Michigan had accomplished. And since Trump became president, Michigan has lost the governor's mansion, they've lost the State House, they've lost the State Senate, and up and down the ticket, they've had losses. And now, you have a divided party within Michigan, but that's happening all over the country. Donald Trump is a sinking ship."
As for Trump's campaign, they've said in recent days that Haley is "no longer living in reality," and that "delusion is clouding her judgment" as she continues in the race amid his early victories.
"[Haley] can’t name one state she can win, let alone be competitive in," Trump's team said in a statement ahead of the South Carolina primary on Saturday. "The fact is that Haley’s campaign has now turned into a full-fledged Never Trump operation with her as Crooked Joe Biden’s biggest surrogate."
While Haley received rousing applause from supporters in the crowd Monday when discussing topics of the economy and immigration among others, some others in the crowd still had yet to lock in their votes as of Monday.
One voter, Rudy Banka, who described himself as a reliable conservative, said he came to the rally to hear Haley's entire speech to help make up his mind.
What he did see, he said, impressed him.
"I liked what she says, I liked the way she said it, she carries herself very well," Banka said. "And, I am more inclined to vote for her tomorrow than I had been when I walked in."
However, given Trump's dominance in the primary race so far, Banka said he's also skeptical of what path she has to the nomination.
But with new statewide polling out last week from EPIC-MRA that showed Trump and Biden in a statistical dead heat, with many undecided, Haley honed in on the message of alternative, saying she sees herself as the current president's best competition.
"We want to show Michigan, look at what happened in your own state, look at the chaos that has followed since Donald Trump," Haley said. "And that's what this is about is we can't handle four more years of chaos. We won't survive it."
To win Michigan in a general election, however, candidates will likely have to address issues that have cemented themselves at the tops of many Michiganders' minds.
One of those issues is the continuance of the Israel-Hamas war, with some Michiganders - particularly among the state's Arab American population - expressing sharp disapproval of President Biden's handling of the conflict and what they see as too much support for the military actions of the Israeli government.
"What we're noticing here in Michigan is that there is a whole swath of us people who are looking at our president and his handling of the situation in Gaza and thinking, 'This is not the way.'" said Abbas Alawieh, a spokesperson for the group Listen to Michigan that is encouraging voters to choose "uncommitted" on their Democratic primary ballots in protest.
On Monday, Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, framed the issue as one in which the focus should be placed on the nation of Iran as a major backer of Hamas.
"We need to put Iran at bay," Haley said. "We need to make sure we put the sanctions back on Iran so that the money doesn't flow, we need to make sure that Hamas is never able to get into Israel again so that that doesn't happen and we need to do whatever it takes to bring our hostages home."
Where many who have expressed opposition to Biden's handling of the war and subsequent events in Gaza have called for an immediate ceasefire, Haley said she would support such if certain conditions were met.
"The only way to do it- I would put sanctions back on Iran, make sure we strengthen the sanctions to stop the money flow, I would go and make sure that we take out whatever production sites they're using to strike our members of the military and then we need to go and take out a couple of the Iranian military leadership that are making these decisions," Haley said. "That's the only way we're going to go after it. Iran responds not by us taking out their equipment, not by us taking out their fighters. The only thing they respond to is money and their leadership, and that's what we need to do, and that's the only way we're going to stop Hamas and that's the only way we're going to stop Iran."
Another issue top of mind for some Michigan voters has been the issue of reproductive rights, as some have expressed alarm over what they see as the possibility of a national abortion ban that would supersede Michigan's new constitutional protections - dependent on the outcome in November.
"It is an issue about harm - real harm that is happening to people every day in our country," Vice President Kamala Harris said as she visited Grand Rapids last week to speak on the issue.
"One does not have to give up or in any way abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body," Harris said. "If she chooses, she will consult with her priest her pastor, her rabbi, her Imam. But it should not be the government telling people what to do with their bodies."
Haley said that, while she agreed with the Supreme Court's decision to repeal the nationwide right to an abortion, she believes a federal ban would be unlikely, given recent makeups in Congress that she believes suggest a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate would not be possible for such legislation.
Instead, she said she would argue for what she believes to be more moderate options.
"Let's just agree to ban late-term abortions, let's encourage adoptions," Haley said. "Let's say that doctors and nurses who don't believe in abortion shouldn't have to perform them, let's make sure contraception is accessible and let's make sure no state law says to a woman who's had an abortion that she's going to jail or getting the death penalty."
Conversations over reproductive options have also sparked in the wake of a recent Alabama Supreme Court decision that ruled, in that state, frozen embryos used in in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments are children.
According to reporting from the Associated Press, the decision has caused the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system, the state's largest hospital, to pause IVF treatments in order to consider potential legal ramifications for staff and patients that could face criminal charges.
"Individuals, couples who want to start a family are now being deprived of access to what can help them start a family," Harris said last week.
But on the issue of IVF, Haley said she agrees that such treatments should be available - a position echoed by Trump when he called on the Alabama legislature to preserve IVF access.
"My two children came because of fertility processes, and we need to make sure that those are always available to any parents that want to have a baby," Haley said. "This should be between the doctor and the patients."
As Michiganders head to the polls on Tuesday, all eyes will be on whether Haley has enough support to secure her first statewide primary win - or if she will move on underneath another Trump victory.
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