Haley features conservative general’s endorsement in New Hampshire ad

Former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley promoted a prominent conservative military officer in her latest GOP presidential campaign ad targeted at New Hampshire voters, just weeks from the Granite State primary.

Gen. Don Bolduc was the GOP nominee for the New Hampshire Senate seat in 2022, but maintains his reputation as a well-known conservative across the state. Bolduc has denied the 2020 presidential election results, advocated for strict anti-abortion laws and spread misinformation about COVID-19. The military officer says he remains “MAGA all the way.”

“I’ve always been America First,” he says in the ad. “But this time, I’m for Nikki Haley for president. She’s tough on the border, tough on China. She’s got real plans.”

Bolduc, who was a brigadier general in the Army, lost his 2022 Senate bid to incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.). He previously spread the unsubstantiated theory that the 2020 election was illegally stolen from former President Trump, before later reversing his position and then wavering on his stance on the election outcome.

“With Trump, there’s too many distractions — there’s too much risk of losing,” Bolduc said in the pro-Haley ad. “Nikki’s a strong conservative. She’ll take Joe Biden to the cleaners, and she’ll make our country proud.”

The spot will run statewide on television and digital platforms.

Bolduc backed up his remarks in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, with a link to the ad.

“It’s time to leave the chaos and drama of the past behind,” he wrote.

“Nikki is winning over Granite State voters of all sorts, from former Trump supporters to grassroots Republicans to Independents. That’s the winning formula for beating Joe Biden in a landslide, which is what all the polls show she will do,” a Haley spokesperson said in an email to The Hill.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), who has endorsed Haley and appeared with her on the campaign trail, previously called Bolduc a “conspiracy-theory extremist” during a local radio interview.

Haley, meanwhile, raised eyebrows earlier this week when she said New Hampshire voters would “correct” the outcome in the Iowa caucuses Jan. 19.

“You know Iowa starts it. You know that you correct it,” she said during a campaign event in the Granite State on Wednesday.

Haley trails Trump by 11.9 percent, with the former president’s 41.6 percent to Haley’s 29.7 percent average, according to the The Hill/Decision Desk HQ polling average for the Granite State GOP primaries.