Trump campaign in talks with Nikki Haley to join him on the campaign trail to close the gender gap with Harris

By Kristen Holmes, Alayna Treene and Steve Contorno, CNN

(CNN) — Former President Donald Trump’s campaign is in talks with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to join him on the trail in the final days of the 2024 race as he seeks to broaden his appeal among female voters, two sources familiar with the talks told CNN.

No events have been finalized, however, some of the discussions have centered on a potential joint appearance at a Fox News town hall in late October, the sources said.

The talks were first reported by The Bulwark.

Trump has held a number of town halls moderated by prominent Republican women, including Govs. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kristi Noem, however GOP operatives acknowledge Haley could draw a different kind of voter.

“The gender gap is real,” one source close to Trump told CNN. “Haley attracts a different kind of voter. She gets a lot of positive media coverage and appeals to women who are unsure of Donald Trump.”

“We’re seeing Republican candidates struggle with women, and that includes Donald Trump,” one GOP operative told CNN. “Haley helps with that.”

Trump’s senior advisers privately acknowledge that some women voters don’t necessarily like Trump as a person or his rhetoric, but they think he could win them over with his policies.

The campaign has also been touting Haley’s endorsement of Trump in battleground states. A billboard, recently placed in the Milwaukee suburbs, read: “Endorsed by Nikki Haley.”

Haley, Trump’s former GOP primary rival, endorsed the former president at the Republican National Convention in July, where she was given a primetime speaking slot after enormous backlash from a sect of the party.

While she has continued to highlight her disagreements with Trump and has criticized his rhetoric and personal attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris, Haley recently lent her voice in support of the former president in a robocall to voters. In that call, she acknowledged she doesn’t agree with the former president “100% of the time” but argued he’s the better candidate.

She has yet to appear with Trump on the campaign trail.

The discussions on how to deploy Haley on the trail come after Trump’s former United Nations ambassador sharply criticized the former president during her primary campaign, while also presenting herself as a more moderate alternative within the GOP.

When asked during a Fox News interview Friday about whether he expects to get more women on the campaign trail – like his wife and daughter, Melania and Ivanka Trump – to help him appeal to female voters, Trump said, “I think I do very well with women. And I think it’s all nonsense. I see the polls, and we do well.”

Asked specifically about potentially deploying Haley on the trail, Trump said, “I’ll do what I have to do.”

He then pivoted to pointing out his dominance over the GOP primary field, saying, “But let me just tell you Nikki Haley and I fought, and I beat her by 50, 60, 90 points. I beat her in her own state by numbers that nobody’s ever been beaten by.”

He added that while “everybody keeps saying” Haley should campaign for him, no advises him to ask Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to campaign for him.

“I like Nikki … Nikki, I don’t think should have done what she did, and that’s fine that she did it,” he said, before again highlighting his defeat of Haley in the primary and adding, “They say, ‘Oh when is Nikki coming back in?’ Nikki is in. Nikki is helping us already.”

However, Trump and his campaign have recently sought out female voters, including sitting for a Fox News town hall with all female voters in Georgia earlier in the week.

Senior advisers also hoped that the endorsement from Robert Kennedy Jr., who has been stumping for Trump on the campaign trail, could help with the female demographic – particularly conservative-leaning mothers. Women were more likely to support Kennedy than men, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey, though other polls haven’t shown a meaningful difference.

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