Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo
- Republicans came across as chaotic during the midterms, Nikki Haley said.
- That turned off many voters who were also dissatisfied with Biden and Democrats, she said.
- Haley made the comments during the "Honestly" podcast with Bari Weiss.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley criticized members of her party over their handling of the 2022 midterms, blaming campaign "chaos" for the results that gave them only marginal authority on Capitol Hill.
"It's not that they loved Joe Biden or they liked the direction Democrats were going," Haley told journalist Bari Weiss on her "Honestly" podcast about midterm voters. "What they saw was Republicans were hating on each other and the Democrats. And from an independent standpoint it looked like chaos, and they didn't want to be a part of that."
Democrats bucked recent political trends during the 2022 midterms by hanging onto more seats than they expected, despite voters' pessimistic feelings about the US.
As President Joe Biden himself has been gearing up to run again in 2024, he has been portraying corners of the Republican Party as too radical and extreme, describing them as "Ultra MAGA" and a threat to Democracy.
Democrats have also singled out Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia as representative of the party. Greene yelled "liar" during the president's State of the Union Address and previously promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Biden, as recently as Wednesday evening, joked that Greene is helping Democrats recruit support. Other Republicans were similarly vocal during Biden's State of the Union Address.
Haley, who was South Carolina governor and UN Ambassador under President Donald Trump, launched her campaign in February and since then has focused most of her attacks on Biden while taking a few shots at Trump's age and the education policies of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
She isn't the only one to lament the state of the party. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blamed the midterm election results on "candidate quality," a comment meant to single out Trump-backed candidates.
In preliminary exit polls following the midterms, about equal proportions of voters said both Republicans and Democrats were "too extreme."
Haley's comments about Republicans, which aired Thursday, came in response to a question from Weiss, asking Haley to address public dissatisfaction with Democrats, saying some voters "are desperate for an alternative" due to school closures and rising crime.
"But they look at the circus that is the modern-day GOP, and they say, 'You know what I'm going to stick with this party because the other one just seems so crazy.' What do you say to that voter?" Weiss asked.
Despite Republican disappointment over the midterms, the party did secure a narrow majority in the US House. Afterward, however, mayhem ensued over whether Republican Kevin McCarthy of California should be elected speaker. McCarthy did eventually clinch the top leadership after the fifth day of voting.
Haley said Republicans had the right to secure policy promises ahead of agreeing to vote for McCarthy, including on spending, term limits, and pushing for more time to review legislation ahead of a vote. But, she added, the deliberations should have happened in private.