Dem
51
GOP
49
Donald Trump is running a base-only campaign. His goal is to get enough true believers to the polls to win and to hell with everyone else. That includes Republicans who voted for Nikki Haley. Usually after a divisive primary, the winner tries to make nice to the losers, tell them they put up an excellent fight, but now it is time for the party to unify and back the winner. That's not how Trump works.
Now that Trump is the candidate-presumptive (analagous to the president-elect), he could have contacted Haley, told her she ran an impressive campaign, and asked her to join the effort to defeat the evil Joe Biden. He hasn't done it. Trump also has not reached out to key people in Haleyworld, such as Republican megadonor Art Pope, who handled the funding Haley got from the remaining Koch brother. Pope has no interest in going to Trump with his tail between his legs and begging forgiveness, either. He said he wants to see who Trump will pick as his running mate and what the tone of the Republican National Convention is. If he wants to know, he can drop us a note and we can tell him with 99% certainty what the tone of the convention will be.
One top Haley donor said: "At the end of the day, it's just hubris and this belief that no matter what, they've got this, and they don't need Nikki's voters. I think this is all going to end badly [in the general] and Haley will have proven to be correct. Everybody is going to deserve what they get here." If the Haley voters go for Biden, a third-party candidate, or sit this one out, Trump's arrogance could come back to bite him in the rear in November.
Another person Trump has not approached is Mike Pence, his former veep, who said that he "cannot in good conscience" endorse Trump. And Pence said this on Fox on Friday, so the Trump faithful will know it. He also went on Face the Nation yesterday and said it again. But his reason wasn't Trump's attempt to shred the Constitution or his encouraging rioters who were chanting "Hang Mike Pence." No, his argument is that Trump is insufficiently conservative on abortion, the national debt, China, and TikTok. Chris Christie is also not on board (yet). (V)