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Friday, February 17, 2023
On Tuesday, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley announced her intention to seek the Republican nomination for the 2024 US presidential election.
Haley, also a former US ambassador to the United Nations under then-President Donald Trump, would be the first ‘major’ primary opponent to her one-time employer.
While she has never lost a race, Haley has lagged behind Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in hypothetical opinion polling for the presidential election.
If she won the nomination, she would be the first woman and first non-white Republican presidential nominee. If victorious in the general election, she would become the first female US president and first of Indian descent.
In her Twitter announcement video, “Strong & Proud,” Haley says, “Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections. That has to change.”
She adds, “[US President] Joe Biden’s record is abysmal, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Washington [D.C.] establishment has failed us over and over and over again. […] It’s time for a new generation of leadership […] I’m Nikki Haley, and I’m running for president.”
On Wednesday, Haley held her opening rally in Charleston, South Carolina. According to Politico, the event was subdued, in contrast to Trump’s populist rallies of energetic crowds.
Echoing her announcement video, Haley emphasized age in the speech; she is 51, while Biden is 80 and Trump 76.
Haley called for “mandatory mental competency tests for politicians” older than 75 and the rejection of “the stale ideas and faded names of the past.”
“America is not past our prime […] It’s just that our politicians are past theirs,” she continued.
Nikki Haley was born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa in Bamberg, South Carolina in 1972, to Sikh immigrants from India. In her announcement video, images of Haley’s family appear while she says, “I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants — not Black, not white. I was different.”
Haley married Michael Haley in 1996 and worked as an accountant. In 2004, she ran for office for the first time, defeating the most senior South Carolina state representative. In 2010, at 38, Haley won the governorship despite Sanford and experienced opponents, becoming the first non-white female governor of a US state.
Haley addressed the 2012 Republican National Convention, and won reelection in 2014. She delivered the Republican rebuttal to then-President Barack Obama’s 2016 State of the Union Address.
In 2015, after a self-proclaimed white supremacist shot and killed black churchgoers in Charleston, Haley went to the victims’ funerals and successfully lobbied the state legislature to remove a Confederate States of America flag from above the state capitol.
Haley denounced Trump’s refusal to condemn the Ku Klux Klan during his 2016 presidential campaign.
In 2017, however, she expressed support for Trump, by then president, and he successfully nominated her as US ambassador to the United Nations.
During her tenure, the US left UNESCO and the UN Human Rights Council, claiming the bodies were advocating anti-Israel policies.
As ambassador, Haley went on television announcing the US was preparing further sanctions against Russia, but the government never imposed them. The White House explained the measures were scrapped without informing Haley. Larry Kudlow, a top presidential economist, said the ambassador was “confused”.
Haley sent a letter to the White House declaring, “With all due respect, I don’t get confused.”
In late 2018, she resigned from the post, with neither Haley nor the administration providing a reason. Trump said her departure was planned six months before, about when the incident occurred.