With less than a week left for the Iowa Caucuses scheduled to be held on January 15, presidential primary candidate Nikki Haley has picked up the endorsement of former Donald Trump supporter, longtime Republican donor and fundraiser, Cameron Sutton.
A staunch supporter of conservative politics, Sutton, has worked on fundraising efforts for U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst in 2014. She named him as the state director the following year. He has been involved in GOP political campaigns of several conservative candidates like Chris Christie, and Newt Gingrich.
Sutton has also served on the board of Heritage Foundation, a conservative organization based in Washington D.C. Before being associated with politics, he worked as an insurance executive, a profession from which he retired first in 2006, only to make a comeback the following year. He retired in 2010.
Sutton said Haley met with him and a few other business leaders in the first week of 2024 where she impressed him with her approach to governing, according to a report. Sutton and other leaders also met with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who is polling at second position among Republican caucusgoers in Iowa, behind frontrunner Trump, and ahead of Haley who is in third position.
Sutton said DeSantis is “more than qualified to be a great President,” but the endorsement went to Haley because her approach was “more in line with how I would go about it.”
He praised DeSantis for the work he has got done in Florida but highlighted that Haley did the same as a two-term South Carolina Gov. between 2011 to 2017, after which she became the 29th ambassador of the U.S. to the United Nations from January 2017 to December 2018.
Sutton also believes Trump was the right President for the country during the time and his policies were beneficial but is no longer relevant among former supporters because of his rhetoric about the 2020 election.
"A lot of people who appreciated his policies got disenchanted with the fact that he kept going back to the election was stolen and this and that," Sutton said. "And it’s kind of like everybody was like, 'Hey, let’s get over this. OK?' There were some irregularities in the election but my goodness, let’s get on with it and move forward."
Sutton further said not many donors are lining up to back Trump in 2024 compared to four years ago. “They’re tired of him just beating up on people, the personal attacks. But yet we all admire him for what he did for us between 2016 and 2020,” he maintained.
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