Hella Ross marched against the Vietnam War and has been a Democrat for as long as she can remember.
On Tuesday she will vote for Nikki Haley during the Republican primaries in New Hampshire.
“We need to make sure that Trump is not the nominee,” she told DailyMail.com a few hours before attending a Haley rally in the New Hampshire city of Rochester.
If Haley loses in the nation’s primaries, the 2024 Republican nomination will be as good as Trump’s.
If Haley wins, it could be thanks to a small army of Democratic voters who knew enough about the state’s voting rules to register as “black” voters before October 6 last year.
Hella Ross, 69, changed her registration from Democratic to “black” last year so she can vote in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday in an effort to stop Donald Trump
New Hampshire’s semi-open primaries allow independents to vote alongside registered Republicans.
The strategy has infuriated Trump.
“Nikki Haley in particular is counting on Democrats and liberals to infiltrate your Republican primaries,” he told a crowd at the Atkinson Country Club on Tuesday night.
He repeated the attack a night later in Portsmouth, saying it was no surprise “as her campaign is funded by the Democrats.”
Bring it on, said Ross, 69.
“That’s exactly what happens,” she said. “And he’s angry about it.”
Several political groups campaigned to encourage Democrats to switch allegiances before the primary election deadline. And others are trying to get independents to help stop Trump.
Primary Pivot’s Robert Schwarz said Joe Biden was a shot in the arm for the Democratic nomination race, so Democrats need to use their vote in a different way.
“We believe that Donald Trump poses a unique existential threat to our democracy,” he said. “And so people who put saving our democracy above party politics should want to stop him.”
Ross was in the crowd to watch Nikki Haley in Rochester on Wednesday night. She said she was “persuasive and smart as a whip.” She plans to vote for the former South Carolina governor
The strategy has infuriated Trump, who accused Haley of relying on Democrats and liberals to “infiltrate” the Republican primaries.
New Hampshire was hit by a snowstorm on Tuesday, but temperatures are expected to rise by about 10 degrees next week, which could lead to record turnout in the state’s primary elections.
He said 3,500 Democrats reregistered as black in New Hampshire last year. If they all voted for Haley, it could give an anti-Trump candidate a one-point boost in a primary that draws about 300,000 voters.
More important, he said, was convincing tens of thousands more black voters to participate.
His analysis is that Trump will get about 130,000 votes from his base. Increasing turnout among those black voters is the best way to stop him.
Ross said she came to much the same conclusion while brainstorming with her friends last year.
She said she liked Chris Christie, but he never had much traction. It was the same small group of people who showed up at each of his events.
Haley had momentum, though.
“She’s a woman of color. She is an Indian American. She is a military spouse,” said Ross, who worked in customer service at financial institutions before retiring.
‘So she has a lot of background in different facets of life. And she has a plan. She is very convincing. She’s as smart as a whip.”
Haley appeared with New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu on Wednesday. He told DailyMail.com that Haley brought a broad coalition of voters back to the Republican Party
Haley built momentum through the end of 2023, but needs a strong finish in New Hampshire
Her stance on LGTBQ issues “took some work,” added Ross, who admitted she was also unimpressed by Haley’s recent blunder in failing to talk about slavery as one of the causes of the Civil War.
Sometimes you have to give politicians a chance and look at the bigger picture.
“They won’t be perfect,” she said. “And they’ll have days off.”
She later joined a few hundred voters at the nearby American Legion Hall to see Haley in person.
The loyal Republicans also included Lori Picarazzi, a 63-year-old interior designer. She said she was still thinking about how to tell her 94-year-old father, who had spent his life in Democratic local politics, that she would run in the GOP Primary.
“I was going to vote for Nikki Haley just because I want her to win the New Hampshire primary and not Trump,” the lifelong Democrat said.
After the event at the American Legion in Rochester, Haley spent an hour posing for photos and talking with supporters
“But after seeing her tonight, I’m voting for her because I want her to be president, not because I’m voting against Trump.”
She had just signed up to help on the primary school day. But she added that she took all the yard signs home, at least not before calling her friends and neighbors and explaining her recent conversion.
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu shrugged off Trump’s criticism that people like Picarazzi should not be allowed to participate in the primaries.
He said Haley’s conservative credentials were impeccable.
“What a great opportunity for the Republican Party to bring people back in, to have a conservative who doesn’t drive people away, who isn’t surrounded by chaos,” he told DailyMail.com.
“That’s exactly what we want.”
Similar efforts to court Democrats and independents are underway in other states, Schwarz said.
“But our basic fundamental analysis at the beginning of this was that if Trump wins by large margins in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the race is effectively over,” he said.