Rallying in Needham, Nikki Haley says she offers a new direction

Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley made her pre-Super Tuesday pitch to Massachusetts voters Saturday night, saying the choice on their ballot its between a new direction or more of the same.

“More of the same is not just Joe Biden,” the former South Carolina governor told ralliers in a Needham hotel ballroom. “More of the same is Donald Trump.”

In the final days before voters in Massachusetts and 14 other states head to the polls Tuesday, Haley is traveling the country to urge her supporters to make their voices heard and keep the faith in a campaign that has lagged well behind the frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.

Haley arrived at the Needham Sheraton after events in North Carolina earlier in the day, with a stack of beaded friendship bracelets on her left wrist. She said the bracelets, with slogans like “Haley 2024,” “Nikki 4 Pres” and “Democracy,” were all handed to her that day by young girls.

She told the crowd she’s in this race because younger Americans “deserve to know what normal feels like.”

“They wonder how they're going to get a job. They wonder how they're going to make ends meet," she said. "They don't think they're ever going to be able to afford a home, and they see wars around the world. And all of that is under an umbrella in America of anger and division.”

While Haley casts herself as an alternative to Trump, Republican primary voters in many states don’t appear to be looking for one.

A Suffolk University poll of registered Massachusetts voters, conducted last month found Trump leading Haley 55-38 in the GOP primary contest here.

Almost 64% of the state’s registered voters do not belong to a political party, and those voters can choose to vote in the Republican, Democratic or Libertarian primaries Tuesday.

Under Mass. GOP rules, Haley would need to keep Trump from taking 50% of the vote to walk away with any of the state’s 40 delegates.

With relatively few delegates, a track record of reliably voting for the Democrat in the general election, and the shadow of neighboring New Hampshire’s high-profile primary, it’s rare for Massachusetts to draw a presidential candidate for this kind of get-out-the-vote event. Haley, who has stops planned Sunday in Maine and Vermont, said every state counts.

"We think Massachusetts matters," Haley told GBH News. "And when you look at the state of our country — I mean, our country is in disarray, the world is on fire, and there's never been [more of] a time where we needed a new generational leader that leaves the negativity and the baggage behind and really starts focusing on solutions for the future for the American people."

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a top Haley ally on the campaign trail, said voters here can "show the rest of this country that we ain't over by a long shot."

"No one is thinking it's going to happen," he said. "But there are states – and Massachusetts is a key one, one at the top – where all of a sudden, come Wednesday morning, the media is going to go, 'Oh, wait we thought we knew what the hell was going on.'"

Haley, 52, drew laughs from the crowd when she described Congress as “the most privileged nursing home in the country” and cheers for many of her proposals around border security and combating illegal immigration. She said she wants to launch a national program requiring businesses to prove their workers are in the country legally, defund sanctuary cities and "put 25,000 Border Patrol and ICE agents on the ground and let them do their job."

Recent polling has shown immigration policy is top of mind for many voters in Massachusetts, where the number of newly arriving migrant families has pushed the state’s emergency shelter system past its capacity. In the February Suffolk poll, 47% of respondents said U.S. border and the number of immigrants entering the country has become an emergency situation and among the most serious issues facing the country.

Sudbury resident Gary Knapick, who attended the rally, said he plans to vote for Haley Tuesday. He said she represents generational change for the Republican party.

"Regardless of the outcome, I think it sends a message that basically Donald Trump doesn't have a monopoly grip on the party, and I think that's important symbolically," he said. "If she's not successful overall in the primary, I think she still will be well positioned to be the critic of the Trump administration in the future, for example, and kind of represents an alternative for conservative voices in the country."