Ken Griffin, the CEO of financial firm Citadel and GOP megadonor, cast doubt Tuesday on Nikki Haley’s hopes of upsetting former President Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination.
Mr. Griffin said he has supported Ms. Haley and described her as a “tremendous candidate,” but said her path to victory is “a narrower road than it was eight weeks ago.”
“I think there is a sense of do we want to return to a president who is just viewed as more powerful, more in charge, and that is going to be difficult for Nikki to overcome right now,” Mr. Griffin said, alluding to Mr. Trump, during a question and answer session at the Managed Funds Association networking conference in Miami.
Mr. Griffin said Ms. Haley represents the sort of generational change the nation needs and said he is convinced the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations would “run away with the general election” if she were the Republican standard-bearer.
“I just don’t know, though, that at this moment that is going to get her where she needs to get to in South Carolina and thereafter,” he said.
Ms. Haley, who also served as governor of South Carolina, is the last remaining rival to Mr. Trump.
She finished third in the Iowa caucuses and second in the New Hampshire primary.
Ms. Haley contends the race is just beginning now that it’s a two-person fight.
Polls, though, show she faces an uphill battle in the Feb. 24 primary in South Carolina, where the political consensus is she needs a strong showing to stay in contention.
Some donors, including Andy Sabin, have already walked away and encouraged Ms. Haley to drop out and set her sights on running again in 2028.
“You have got to know when to hold ‘em, you have to know when to fold’ em, you have to know when to walk away,” Mr. Sabin said on Fox News last week. “It is time for Nikki Haley to walk away.”
“I will be the first person to write her a check for president in 2028,” he said. “There is absolutely no upside to her going to South Carolina, and there is a tremendous downside.”
Mr. Griffin did not go that far.
But he did say Mr. Trump has significant built-in advantages that come from being the quasi-incumbent in the race and viewed as a “martyr,” thanks to the 90-plus criminal charges he faces on various fronts and the Democrat-led effort to bar him from state ballots.
“It is hard not to feel some level of just like this is just wrong, this is just unfair, and frankly as a voter I want my vote to determine who is president and not some clever legal maneuver by someone on the opposing side of the aisle,” he said.
Mr. Griffin was more coy about whom he would support if the 2024 election is a rematch between Mr. Trump and President Biden, saying he is among the Americans who don’t want to live through that again.
Mr. Griffin said in that case he would focus on down-ticket races.