Nikki Haley to seek Republican nomination for 2024 presidential election
The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is challenging her one-time boss for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
“I’m Nikki Haley, and I’m running for president,” Donald Trump’s former United Nations ambassador said in a video released on Tuesday.
The 51-year-old’s run – which was widely expected – breaks a promise she made two years ago to not challenge the ex-Republican president for the Oval Office. But she had indicated recently that she would go back on her word, saying the country’s economy was too distressed for her to stand by, and that it needed a new generation of leaders – President Joe Biden is 80, and Trump is 76.
As of Tuesday morning, no other major Republican candidate beside Trump and Haley had announced bids aiming to unseat Biden, who has said he intends to seek a second four-year term.
Other Republicans expected to eventually join the fray include Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor; Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice-president; Mike Pompeo, ex-secretary of state; and South Carolina senator Tim Scott.
Haley is vying to become the first female president after a poll published last week found that her entry into a 2024 Republican primary would be enough to keep Trump ahead of his only current close rival: DeSantis.
The Yahoo News/YouGov poll found DeSantis had a 45-41 percentagepoint lead over Trump one-on-one. But with Haley entering the field, the poll cast her in the role of spoiler, finding that she drew 11%, DeSantis’s support sagged to 35%, and Trump would come out on top with 38%.
Perhaps to that end, Trump has met news of Haley’s plans to run for the White House relatively cordially by his usual combative standards. Trump recently said he welcomed the competition from Haley, who called him about launching her presidential campaign. He claimed he told her: “Look, you know, go by your heart if you want to run … You should do it.”
That represents a marked contrast from how Trump has attacked DeSantis since he emerged as a political threat. Trump recently said he would consider it “very disloyal” for DeSantis to run against him, according to Politico.
The Trump-allied super political action committee Make America Great Again – or Maga – Inc was much more pugnacious about Haley’s announcement on Tuesday, calling her “just another career politician” in a statement. The statement, attributed to former Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich, noted how Haley initially opposed the ex-president before serving in his administration.
“She’s telling us she represents a ‘new generation’,” Budowich’s statement said. “Sure just looks like more of the same – a career politician whose only fulfilled commitment is to herself.”
Haley also hopes to become the first US president of Indian descent. Her parents were Indian immigrants – and throughout her career, she has described suffering racist remarks about her upbringing while explaining how they have shaped her personal and political outlooks.
She worked as an accountant before she successfully ran against the longest-serving member of South Carolina’s state house of representatives in 2004. Haley spent three years in that role before running for governor of South Carolina.
Endorsements from the outgoing incumbent at the time, Mark Sanford, and the former Alaska governor Sarah Palin – then a darling of the right – helped her become the first woman and minority to win the office of South Carolina governor.
Then 38, she was also the youngest person in the US to become governor.
Haley’s ascent at the time landed her opportunities to speak at the 2012 Republican convention, and she was the party’s pick to respond to Barack Obama’s 2016 State of the Union speech.
She was the US ambassador to the UN after Trump won the presidency in 2016, but she resigned in 2018.
The Democratic party’s national chairperson, Jaime Harrison, issued a statement after Haley’s announcement saying that she has embraced “the most extreme elements” of Trump’s Maga agenda.
“She … couldn’t even identify a policy difference between herself and Trump,” Harrison added.
The statement also noted that the abortion ban which Haley signed as governor of South Carolina contained no exceptions for rape or incest. That ban took effect, along with other similar ones in many states across the US, after the supreme court last year eliminated the right to abortion that had been established by the landmark Roe v Wade decision.
Additionally, Harrison said Haley endorsed a plan to end the federal Medicare program “as we know it” and refused to expand Medicaid to provide affordable healthcare for residents of her state. She did all that while also supporting tax cuts that benefit “the ultra wealthy and corporations”, according to Harrison’s statement.
The Latino voters organization Voto Latino issued a similar statement, adding that Haley as South Carolina’s governor signed “a discriminatory and regressive … measure that allowed police officers to require the immigration papers of anyone [who] is stopped and suspected of being in the country without documentation”. That measure was similar to a separate one in Arizona, Voto Latino’s statement pointed out.
Unlike Haley, Trump faces an array of legal perils. Among other problems, those perils include a sprawling federal investigation into his attempted subversion of his defeat to Biden in 2020, his alleged incitement of the deadly January 6 Capitol attack, and his retention of classified information.
Before Tuesday’s video announcement, Haley was expected to declare her 2024 presidential candidacy on Wednesday in Charleston. She is scheduled to soon head to New Hampshire, which has an early slot on the primary calendar.
The Yahoo/YouGov poll which predicted Haley would be a spoiler in a Trump v DeSantis match-up, to the latter’s detriment, did find that she attracted much more support than other potential Republican presidential candidates for 2024 – including Pence, Pompeo and the former Maryland governor Larry Hogan.