A Philly-based group rallied Nikki Haley voters now supporting Kamala Harris. Then came a cease-and-desist letter.

Haley Voters for Harris, a Philadelphia-based group led by Nikki Haley voters against former President Donald Trump, has set its sights on Pennsylvania and other crucial battleground states, encouraging Haley’s backers to throw their support instead behind Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy.

But Haley, a former Republican presidential candidate, is not on board.

On Tuesday, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations Ambassador sent a cease-and-desist letter to the group for what she views as associating her name with an endorsement for Harris.

Attorney Michael G. Adams wrote in the letter on Haley’s behalf that Haley’s “name, image or likeness that implies her support for the election of Kamala Harris as president of the United States” should not be used by the group, NPR reported.

“Kamala Harris and I are total opposites on every issue. Any attempt to use my name to support her or her agenda is deceptive and wrong,” Haley said in a statement to NPR. “I support Donald Trump because he understands we need to make America strong, safe, and prosperous.”

Haley initially declined to endorse Trump after dropping out of the presidential race, but eventually supported the former president and even delivered a speech in support of him at the Republican National Convention last week in Milwaukee.

But Haley Voters for Harris said Thursday it “will neither cease nor desist,” and still plans to continue to ramp up its Pennsylvania voter outreach next month.

The group, Haley Voters for Harris (HV4H), said in a statement that its First Amendment speech would not be silenced “because our activities under the ‘Haley Voters for Harris’ campaign are fully compliant with the law.” The group sees the cease-and-desist letter as “an effort to use legal process to intimidate political speech, suppress political speech,” said Craig Snyder, director of HV4H.

“We’ve said over and over, we don’t begrudge her personal choice, that’s up to her, but we are the people working on this, and in this and with this,” Snyder said. “We are Haley voters, and we are for Harris, so we’re just calling ourselves by what we are. It’s a simple statement of English fact.”

HV4H abides by an anyone-but-Trump philosophy. Joining almost 160,000 other registered Republicans in Pennsylvania, Snyder, a resident of Old City, said he made a “pretty bold and dramatic statement of protest” and voted for Haley during the Pennsylvania Republican primary, even though she had suspended her candidacy.

“We knew when we went to the polls that we weren’t actually voting for Nikki Haley,” Snyder said. “We were voting to express displeasure with Donald Trump.”

”Haley Voters for Harris” is a project associated with PivotPAC, a super PAC that was established during the primaries to cater toward Republican voters — “not Trump Republicans, not MAGA Republicans,” as Snyder says — who were looking for an alternative to the former president.

The group was never an official Haley-affiliated PAC, but it did spend $1 million to support the former UN ambassador during her campaign. It also said it sent more than 2.1 million text messages and mailers to 1.1 million people in nine different states to encourage voters to cast their ballots for Haley instead of Trump.

PivotPAC has raised almost $400,000 so far in 2023-2024, with many contributions coming from other anti-Trump groups, according to campaign finance data.

It then shifted to supporting President Joe Biden in his race against Trump, becoming “Haley Voters for Biden,” until Biden withdrew his bid for reelection and the group became “Haley Voters for Harris.”

Led by a core team of four individuals with the help of various contractors for polling and research, the group was “waiting on the sidelines” amid calls for Biden to drop out of the race, ready to support whomever would be the Democratic nominee in November, Snyder said.

“Our view was that either the president or the vice president are better suited for the job than Donald Trump, and so we were going to wait to see what happened, and then go forward from there,” Snyder said.

HV4H has a new series of mass voter communication set to launch in late August, but they are “not trying to talk to everybody,” Snyder said. H4VH plans to narrow in on center-right voters in Pennsylvania — predominantly in Philadelphia and its suburbs — to lobby their votes for Harris via text messaging, YouTube, and digital advertising on social media platforms, Snyder said.

HV4H sees an opportunity to make its case about Harris to the nearly 160,000 registered Republicans in Pennsylvania who gave Haley almost 17% of the vote in the commonwealth during the primary election, despite her no longer being an active candidate, Snyder said. Harris’ campaign is welcoming anti-Trump, Republican voters into her base.

Votes for Haley during the primary were strongest in Southeastern Pennsylvania, with Montgomery County giving Haley nearly 25% of the vote.

The anti-Trump group plans to take cues on its messaging from the Democratic National Convention, which will be held in Chicago from Aug. 19 to 22.

Snyder said he has a deep understanding of Philadelphia, having grown up in the area and attended both the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University. He served as president of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia and was the GOP nominee for Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District between November 1991 and November 1992. Snyder was also a former chief of staff to former Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa), a moderate, pro-choice Republican.

Now, Snyder is running the core of H4VH’s operations out of the city.

“It’s a coincidence that we’re based here, because I’m here, but it’s a happy coincidence because this is really where the action is,” Snyder said.