Koch-backed network drops funding for Nikki Haley campaign after South Carolina defeat

AFP Action, the conservative wing of the highly effective and influential conservative Americans for Prosperity, funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers, has pulled funding for the presidential campaign of Nikki Haley. 

In an e mail to staffers obtained by Fox News, AFP Action senior adviser Emily Seidel mentioned the group didn’t imagine that “any outdoors group could make a fabric distinction to widen [Haley’s] path to victory.” 

“And so while we will continue to endorse her, we will focus our resources where we can make the difference. And that’s the U.S. Senate and House,” Seidel wrote. 

Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and 2024 Republican presidential candidate, throughout an election night time watch social gathering in Charleston, South Carolina, US, on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. (Christian Monterrosa/Bloomberg through Getty Images)

The information was first reported by Politico earlier Sunday. 

AFP Action endorsed Haley in November, giving her a serious grassroots and organizational increase.

The deep-pocketed fiscally conservative network launched an advert blitz on behalf of Haley in January, together with mailers, digital adverts, and related TV spots. 

AFP Action, which pledged to spend tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} to assist push the Republican Party previous former President Trump because it endorsed Haley in late November, mentioned final month it was placing an preliminary $27 million behind this new wave of their ongoing campaign.

TOP HIGHLIGHTS FROM SOUTH CAROLINA’S GOP PRIMARY WHERE TRUMP WON BIG, HALEY VOWED TO PRESS ON

The information got here after Haley’s GOP rival, former President Trump, clinched the social gathering’s nomination in Haley’s own residence state of South Carolina on Saturday.

Despite the loss, and defying calls to exit the race, Haley has mentioned it’s not the “end of our story” as she traveled Sunday to Michigan forward of the state’s major on Tuesday. 

Republican presidential candidate former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks throughout her major election night time gathering at The Charleston Place on February 24, 2024 in Charleston, South Carolina. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

In the lower than 24 hours following her Saturday night time loss, Haley’s campaign mentioned that she had raised $1 million “from grassroots supporters alone,” a bump they argued “demonstrates Haley’s staying power and her appeal to broad swaths of the American public.”

But with Sunday additionally got here the tip of help for Haley’s campaign from Americans for Prosperity, the political arm of the highly effective Koch network.

With his win Saturday within the first-in-the South contest, Trump has now swept each major or caucus on the GOP early-season calendar that awards delegates. His performances have left little maneuvering room for Haley, his former U.N. ambassador.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Still, Haley insists she is sticking round even with the rising strain to desert her candidacy and let Trump focus completely on Democratic President Joe Biden, in a 2020 rematch.