Nikki Haley vows to take on bullies in 2024 bid against Donald Trump

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Nikki Haley, the Trump administration’s US ambassador to the United Nations, is the first Republican to challenge former President Donald Trump for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

Although he has previously dismissed the possibility of running against Trump if he seeks re-election, the former South Carolina governor announced he is running in a video posted Tuesday morning and will kick off his campaign at an event in Charleston Wednesday.

He has framed himself as a moderate Trump-related candidate who could win a general election, noting that he does not tolerate bullies while refraining from making direct references to the former president. That could appeal to party elites who fear Trump will lose again to President Joe Biden, and are eager to move away from Trumps brand of MAGA politics after his handpicked candidates widely underperformed in the midterms.

Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. That needs to change, Haley said in her announcement video. It is time for a new generation of leadership.

He also suggests he will take a hardline stance against America’s adversaries abroad, highlighting his foreign policy credentials.

Some think that our ideas are not only wrong, but racist and evil. Nothing could be further from the truth. I saw something bad. In China, they committed genocide. In Iran, they kill their own people for challenging the government, he said in the video.

If Haley prevails, she will become the first woman and first Asian American to win the GOP nomination for president, adding to the list of firsts she has already achieved: the first female governor of South Carolina and the first Indian American to serve in a statewide office there.

Haley has at times been critical of Trump, denouncing his plan to build a border wall and his claim that there were very good people on both sides of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville where a counter-protester was killed. However, he served in his administration as the top US diplomat from 2016 to 2018 and earned a rare glowing review from Trump upon his departure. Now that he’s challenging his former boss, it’s unclear whether he can continue to successfully toe the line between Trump critic and ally.

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley has centered her pitch for the presidency on foreign policy. He has one of the highest approval ratings of anyone in the Trump administration and is respected by his colleagues on the UN Security Council even while advocating controversial policy decisions, such as Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris Climate Accords, and the UN Human Rights Council.

In an environment where most Americans cite government and inflation as the top issues facing the US, it’s unclear whether that foreign policy experience will resonate with voters. But Haley has conservative credentials as well.

He won the governorship of South Carolina in 2011 with the support of the conservative Tea Party wing of the Republican party and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who continued to tighten voter ID laws, opposed Syrian refugee resettlement in the state, and gained to bipartisan praise for taking down the Confederate flag from the state capitol after a gunman killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015. In his announcement video, he hit on typical conservative priorities, which address the socialist left while calling for border security and fiscal accountability.

Haley, who boasts she has never lost an election, and other Republicans who are reportedly weighing 2024 bids face a tough primary. Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has yet to announce his candidacy, tied 33-33 percent as the primary choice of Republican primary voters in a February Monmouth University poll. By comparison, no other potential challenger received more than two percent support. But it’s early in the cycle, and those numbers could change as candidates round up donors and attract endorsements.

A widening GOP field could in some ways boost Trump’s candidacy. The more candidates that announce, the greater the competition in the Trump lane alternative. There is concern among many in the party that a Trump candidacy would split the vote with his rivals, allowing him to come out on top. That led some Republicans to call on the party to unify early behind DeSantis.

Other possible contenders include former Vice President Mike Pence, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. South Carolina Sen. may also announce. Tim Scott soon, as he is set to begin a listening tour Thursday in Charleston and attend a presidential forum in South Carolina with Haley next month.

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