Although not running in the 2024 election, Nikki Haley, Republican former governor of South Carolina and UN Ambassador under former President Donald Trump, received over 4 million votes from Republican primary voters, including about 110,000 here in Arizona.
And that number is notable. That number is much larger than Joe Biden’s margin of victory here in 2020 and because Haley had already dropped out of the race by the time of the Arizona primary, which suggests that her supporters weren’t willing to simply throw their support to Trump. So, in what’s looking like it’s going to be a close election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, Haley supporters could make a big difference.
Amanda Sprowls, a self-described small-business owner in Tempe and co-chair of the Haley Voters Working Group, sat down with The Show host Sam Dingman to discuss how she feels like Haley voters are in a position to decide the election.
Full conversation
AMANDA SPROWLS: Our votes are really the critical votes in this cycle. And Trump, I mean, he just recently said it with the, you know, within just a few days ago, he said he does not need us if we didn't support him in the primary, he doesn't need us.
[AUDIO OF TRUMP]: One person who didn't support me and now that person came back to me. I don't want that person, I don't want that person, you know, they say you should take everybody but that, that's not the way I'm built.
SPROWLS: So, I think that we have a big group of Republicans that are basically Republicans in revolt.
DINGMAN: And if you're comfortable saying, where are you at this moment, we're talking right now the day before the debate between Vice President Harris and former President Trump, how would you characterize yourself right now? Undecided or?
SPROWLS: You know, I will not vote for Trump again. I did vote for him in 2016 and I voted for him in 2020. I will not vote for him again. And I think that the message that I try to bring on social media is just that the Trump governing style, the Trump policies, those are not winning policies for Republicans. And we see that over and over again.
You know, we saw it, he barely won in 2016 but 2018, we had a loss 2020 we had a loss. Arizona is a great example of that. We just, we're the canary in the coal mine. And I keep saying that we cannot bring hate and vitriol and crazy policies like high tariffs. I mean, we can't bring those things to the table and assume we're going to win.
That being said at this point, I don't think Harris has earned my vote at this point. She has definitely made inroads. And through the hay voting working group, we've met with the campaign. We met with them very early on. We met with them. We were one of the strongest proponents at the time of the Biden Harris administration shutting down the border because there's just no going forward with any Haley voters with any Republican votes if they can't do that.
DINGMAN: And, and these, the meetings that you had were these with the candidate directly or with representatives from the campaign.
SPROWLS: With representatives from the campaign.
DINGMAN: Gotcha. And the border was top of mind for you at that time.
SPROWLS: For me, the issues are obviously the border and then tax policy. Those are the most important things to me.
DINGMAN: And I know you were just referencing the fact that former President Trump had said publicly, we don't need you to Haley voters. Has there been any outreach to the Haley voters working group from the Trump campaign?
SPROWLS: No, there has not been.
DINGMAN: Gotcha. So I had a conversation recently with some RFK Jr. voters who were reckoning with RFK's decision to drop out and endorse former president Trump. What has been your process and the nature of the conversations you've had with other Haley voters about Haley's endorsement of Trump.
SPROWLS: Obviously, some Haley voters were very, very disappointed in that. A lot of Haley voters really did understand, and the reality is, is that Haley has been the strongest at speaking, trying to explain, let's say, where Trump could make policy changes that would make him more effective and make him more palatable.
[AUDIO OF HALEY]: I disagree with Trump on tariffs. If you do tariffs across the board, you're raising prices on farmers, on businesses, on consumers. It's never a good idea.
SPROWLS: And she just recently did that this weekend again.
[AUDIO OF HALEY]: Do I agree with his style? Do I agree with this approach? Do I agree with his communications? No, when I look at the policies and how they affect my family and how I think they're going to affect the country. That's where I go back. And I look at the differences, I mean, this is, these are the candidates we have been given.
SPROWLS: I mean, Haley's supporters, we are not a cult of personality, We are the most educated members of the electorate. We are absolutely policy driven and we want to win. And I would just say that the fact that he that RFK is in the transition team and is potentially looked at for a cabinet spot is a horror to Haley voters, is a horror. It shows a lack of discipline and decision making on Trump's part.
DINGMAN: If you look ahead to a hypothetical Harris presidency, do you feel like you could get to a place where you could support Harris's presidency or do you view it as sort of a necessary corrective step towards elevating a different kind of Republican presidential candidate next time around?
SPROWLS: So at this point, I think a lot of Haley voters, if they've had to make a decision and it's for a lot of them, it's just a coin toss. I mean, it's just a leap of faith or you're going to do a leap of faith and hope that Trump is just not as crazy as he's been vocalizing and that his policies are not going to be as crazy as he talks about and that he is talking about tariffs, but he won't really do it. He's talking about giving Ukraine back to Russia and we're just hoping he wouldn't do that. Right. So that's that leap of faith.
Then there's a leap of faith on the other side that says that, you know, this move to the center by Harris isn't just talk that she's going to mean it. And that maybe, let's say she'll become like the second term Clinton and all of a sudden we'll have welfare reform and tax reform and some fiscal policy reform. But that's a leap of faith as well.
But if you're a principled Republican, if you believe in really true free market and personal responsibility on these sort of things, then even if you chose to vote for Harris, you're not going to be supportive of a Harris presidency to be honest with you, I think what you're going to be supportive of is or what you're potentially reckoning with is we get a bite at Congress in 2026 and that hopefully we have figured out how to refocus on true Republican policies again and are able to run a really high quality candidate.
I mean, you have Nikki Haley, you have Kemp, you have Youngkin, you've got DeSantis. I mean, you've got a really strong group of people out there. Pompeo. I mean, you've got a lot of them that could run in 28 and I think that's ultimately what all Haley Republicans want to see.
DINGMAN: You mentioned the meeting that you had with representatives from the Harris campaign, prior to the change to the border policy. Do you feel like you have seen other implicit signals from the campaign that appeals like the ones coming from Haley voters like yourself are getting through?
SPROWLS: They have made some good adjustments. It's not as much as obviously we would have wanted. But I think recently though I would not excited about a 28% capital gains rate. I think that the fact that she has acknowledged that Biden's proposal of a 39% capital gains rate was wrong. I think she's throwing some bones our way.
What I would really like to hear her say is that she would support maintaining the 20% qualified business, small business deduction for the SCorps that's really important. Most of your small business, that is the category that they fall within.
If that were to sunset, that could have some pretty traumatic results within the economy because, you know, we're looking at small businesses are the ones that hire in the country. We're the ones that are leasing the buildings and we need to acknowledge that and keep that cluster strong. So I'd really like to hear more from her on tax policy right now and keep that stability of the current tax rates.
DINGMAN: So do you deal with backlash from fellow republicans on this?
SPROWLS: Yes, I do. We do. Some of our members have and maybe me being on the radio right now will cause this to happen. But some of our members, I mean, we certainly, they've been, what do you call it? Doxed. Some of them they get, they've gotten death threats, you know, really some pretty horrible stuff. Just random things. Horrible. Somebody's wife, their information got out there and she was getting horrible phone calls.
I mean, things like that do happen, but we need to act like grown-ups. If you want to wish that things were different than they are, that's fine. But you really need to look at the political reality and sort of like a business. Let's look at it. The reality of the situation is and probably a Trump win will be a disaster for Republicans electorally for the next eight years because it is a poison pill.
DINGMAN: All right. Well, Amanda Stewart Sprouls, co-chair of the Haley Voters Working Group. Thank you for coming on the radio to talk about this.
SPROWLS: Thank you.
BRODIE: So, Sam, what are your takeaways from that conversation?
DINGMAN: Well, I think it’s noteworthy that Sprowls says the Harris campaign has been in direct contact with the Haley Voters Working Group. On their Twitter account, they actually claim they’ve had three separate meetings with the Harris team, and according to them, some of the things they’ve advocated for include a bipartisan presidential cabinet, a commitment to continued military support for Israel and support for fracking. And these are all positions we’ve seen Harris take publicly in recent weeks.
BRODIE: And there have been plenty of headlines this week about Harris’s so-called “pivot to the center,” which is particularly interesting given the overall tightening of the head-to-head polls between her and Trump.
DINGMAN: Yes — I think it’s going to be fascinating to see if Harris doubles down on these more centrist policies in the debate tonight, because this conversation with Amanda certainly gave me the sense that she’s committed to wooing these middle-of-the-road Republican voters.
BRODIE: What did you make of what Amanda Sprowls said about her long-term vision for the Republican party?
DINGMAN: That was pretty fascinating, I think! Because she said, at one point, “we care about winning,” right? And it seems like her version of winning is more of a long-term strategy, and that it’s worth losing a big-ticket election now in the name of positioning other Republicans to perform well in future cycles. Some of the names she cited in our conversation that she’d like to see become Republican standard-bearers in the future — besides Haley — include Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
BRODIE: It’s interesting to consider whether the Harris campaign is weighing that as they make these overtures to the Haley contingent of the party.
DINGMAN: Yes — though it certainly seems like there’s some indication that they’re willing to take that gamble.
BRODIE: All right, we’ll see how it all plays out tonight. That was The Show’s Sam Dingman, bringing us a conversation with Amanda Sprowls, co-chair of the Haley Voters Working Group. Thanks Sam.
DINGMAN: Thanks Mark!
