S.C.’s Haley enters ’24 presidential race
Once Trump’s U.N. envoy, she’s his first big challenge for the Republican nod
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, announced her candidacy for president Tuesday, becoming the first major challenger to former President Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination.
The announcement, delivered in a tweeted video, decided to challenge her former boss in recent months, citing, among other things, the country’s economic troubles and the need for “generational change.”
“You should know this about me. I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels,” Haley said. “I’m Nikki Haley, and I’m running for president.”
Haley, 51, is the first in a long line of Republicans who are expected to launch 2024 campaigns in the coming months. President Joe Biden has said he intends to seek reelection in 2024, stalling any jostling for the Democratic nomination.
Haley has regularly boasted about her track record of defying political expectations, saying, “I’ve never lost an election and I’m not going to start now.”
If elected, Haley would be the nation’s first female president and the first U.S. president of Indian descent.
The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley grew up enduring racist taunts in a small South Carolina town. Despite that, Haley insisted that America is not a racist country.
Haley leans into a call for “a new generation of leadership,” which has become the refrain of her messaging leading up to the launch.
In a statement, Taylor Budowich, spokesman for Trump’s super PAC, said Haley was “just another career politician.”
“She started out as a Never Trumper before resigning to serve in the Trump admin,” he said. “She then resigned early to go rake in money on corporate boards. Now, she’s telling us she represents a ‘new generation.’ Sure just looks like more of the same, a career politician whose only fulfilled commitment is to herself.”
Before entering politics, Haley was an accountant. She defeated the longest-serving member of the South Carolina House in 2004 in her first bid for public office. Three terms later and with little statewide recognition, Haley mounted a long-shot campaign for governor against a large field of experienced politicians.
She racked up a number of high-profile endorsements, including from the sitting South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
With her 2010 victory, Haley became South Carolina’s first female governor of color — and the nation’s youngest at 38. She earned a speaking slot at the 2012 Republican National Convention and gave the GOP response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union in 2016.
The defining moment of Haley’s time as governor came after the 2015 murders of nine Black parishioners in a Charleston church by a self-avowed white supremacist who had been pictured holding Confederate flags.
For years, Haley had resisted calls to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds. But after the massacre and with the support of other leading Republicans, the flag came down less than a month after the murders.
In the 2016 presidential primary, Haley was an early supporter of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, later shifting to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. She ultimately said she would back the party’s nominee.
Shortly after Trump’s victory, he tapped Haley to be his U.N. ambassador.
Haley’s departure cleared the way for Henry McMaster, the lieutenant governor who was the nation’s first statewide elected official to back Trump’s 2016 campaign, to ascend to the governorship he had sought, since losing a bruising primary to none other than Haley seven years earlier.
During her nearly twoyear tenure, Haley feuded at times with other administration officials while bolstering her own public persona.
Her departure from the job fueled speculation that she would challenge Trump in 2020 or replace Pence on the ticket. She did neither.
Instead, Haley returned to South Carolina, where she joined the board of aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co., launched herself on the speaking circuit and wrote two books.
During his South Carolina stop last month, Trump told WIS-TV that Haley had called to seek his opinion on running for president.
“She said she would never run against me because I was the greatest president, but people change their opinions, and they change what’s in their hearts,” Trump said. “So I said, ‘If your heart wants to do it, you have to go do it.’”