Former President Donald Trump's attacks on challenger Nikki Haley have been "absurd," including during his weekend rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, when he said she's in an "unholy alliance" to win the GOP nomination, New Hampshire state Sen. Kim Rice, a Haley campaign surrogate, told Newsmax Sunday.
"Nikki Haley was a Tea Party governor and she passed one of the toughest immigration laws in the country that was challenged by the Obama administration, and she won," the New Hampshire Republican said on Newsmax's "Sunday Report." "She passed voter ID, pro-life bills, tax cuts, tort reform, and so much more."
Trump's attacks against Haley, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, are coming because he is "desperate," Rice added.
"He has spent $9 million-plus in New Hampshire going after Nikki Haley," she said. "When she was the ambassador at the U.N., she was tougher on Russia and China than Trump ever was. So he's just trying to fill his supporters with lies and misstatements that just simply aren't true."
Even with the New Hampshire primary two days away and others approaching quickly, it's still not too late for Haley to attract more moderate voters, said Rice.
"Republicans have lost the popular vote [in] seven out of the last nine elections," she said. "We should want to do better, and I think if Nikki can bring them back, that that's a win for us, and we should want to do that."
Further, Rice pointed out that Trump couldn't win the last general election, so it's time to "bring more people into our party with a positive message going forward."
Haley, meanwhile, refused to participate in the New Hampshire primary debate unless former President Donald Trump participated, but Rice said she does not think that hurt her chances in the race.
"We've had five debates, and she's smoked Ron DeSantis in every single one," said Rice. "The one person that she wants to debate is refusing to go to the debate stage and answer for his record, and I think that the person that should hurt the most is Donald Trump."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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