Liberal billionaire Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, paused donations to pro-Nikki Haley super PAC in her bid to become the Republican 2024 presidential nominee after her loss to former President Donald Trump in the New Hampshire primary, a source familiar with the matter has told multiple outlets.
Hoffman has said he’ll vote for President Joe Biden in November but backed Haley financially because his “first priority is to defeat Trump.” The Democratic donor gave $250,000 to Stand For America Fund Inc. last year, a pro-Haley super PAC, the New York Times reported.
“Prior to the primaries, we made an investment in Gov. Haley because we saw that her performance in New Hampshire might give her a path to defeating Donald Trump,” Hoffman’s political philanthropy adviser Dmitri Mehlhorn told Fox News.
But Mehlhorn said the LinkedIn co-founder needs to see a “path to victory” before making another donation to the former United Nations ambassador.
Mehlhorn said, “It is still possible that Gov. Haley will be able to persuade voters that Trump is no longer stable and cannot carry their banner into the fall campaign,” but he “would need to see a new potential path to victory given that she did not win New Hampshire” before recommending another donation from Hoffman.
“The only way I can see a path happening is if Trump has a ‘senior moment,’ and she’s able to exploit it to persuade GOP voters that he’s lost it,” Mehlhorn said.
In December, Hoffman said he’s financially backing Haley’s super PAC because she’s “the only Republican nominee other than Trump with any chance of winning the GOP nomination.”
However, Trump has swept Haley in the early-voting states so far, winning with 51% of the votes in Iowa and 54.5% in New Hampshire.
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Following this week’s primary, other GOP big donors have called on Haley to step aside. Billionaire metal magnate Andy Sabin, who has donated millions to Republican campaigns, told Fox Business, “It’s time for Nikki Haley to walk away.”
The pro-Haley super PAC, Stand For America Fund Inc., raised $50.1 million in the last half of 2023, outraising the pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., by more than $5 million, a source familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.