Nikki Haley announces 2024 presidential bid, marking first GOP challenge to Trump

US Capital Former South Carolina Governor and US Representative to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, announced her intention to run for president on Tuesday. She is the first Republican to take on former President Donald Trump for her party’s nomination.

It’s time for a new generation of leadership, Haley, who previously worked under Trump, said in a video shared online.

At the end of the video, Nikki Haley announces her candidacy for president.

Haley, the first female governor of South Carolina and the first Indian-American to hold the office, was born there to Indian immigrants in Bamberg. If she wins the nomination, she would make history again by being the first Asian-American woman and woman to represent the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

On Wednesday, Haley is scheduled to make an announcement about her candidacy to supporters in Charleston, South Carolina. The following week, she will visit New Hampshire and Iowa, the first states with presidential primaries. In mid-March, Haley will return to South Carolina for a conservative conference.

In announcing her candidacy, Haley lamented the fact that Republicans had lost the popular vote in seven of the previous eight elections, saying that this pattern “must change.”

Haley first told The Associated Press in April 2021 that she would not oppose Trump if he decided to launch a third presidential bid, but she later said in a Fox News interview that her plans for her political future may have changed due to of the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the country’s economic difficulties.

President Biden is 80 years old and about to announce his re-election bid.

Taylor Budowich, the head of the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC, attacked Haley as “just another career politician” even though Trump had wished Haley well and claimed he had pushed her to “follow her heart.”

Before he resigned to work for Trump [administration], she was a Never Trump supporter, he claimed in a statement. “Later, she submitted her application early so she could start earning money on company boards.

She now claims to speak for a “new generation”. In fact, it seems like just another professional politician who has fulfilled only his own obligations.”

In early polls ahead of the 2024 GOP presidential primary, Haley has consistently finished third or fourth behind Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another expected candidate.

Haley finished fourth with 5% of the vote in a Club for Growth Action poll of GOP voters conducted across the country earlier this month. However, GOP operatives and Republican officials based in South Carolina have said Haley’s popularity and ties to the Palmetto State could boost her in a presidential run.

“This is going to turn out to be a battle between tough enemies,” Dave Wilson of the Palmetto Family Council, a well-known conservative charity in South Carolina, told CBS News. The only serious candidate right now is Nikki Haley’s old employer, who has formally joined the presidential race. ” Nikki Haley has often received low ratings from South Carolinians over the years. I now suspect that the coming year will show just how well

In a modest January survey of potential Republican voters in the state by the South Carolina Policy Council, 47% opposed Trump’s nomination while 37% agreed.

Haley adds a crucial vote to the race, said West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, and now is the moment “to have the race.”

Capito told CBS News that “anyone at this stage has a fair shot” and that “I think we need a diversity of perspectives and certainly more female Republican nominees, like we had last time.” Capito also said Haley is “wise to get in early.”

Late. Marco Rubio of Florida, who sought the Republican nomination in 2016 and had Haley’s support, told CBS News that the former president will “beat all his opponents” if he runs with Trump on the ballot.

“It’s not an easy thing to do or to do, as I discovered during my campaign,” Rubio added. “Running for president is challenging. It’s pretty hard to run against Donald Trump. Especially in the current era, he’s a gifted communicator.”

Still, Haley has “backbone and ability,” according to Utah senator and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who believes people would be “surprised to see how well” she performs.

After nine people were killed by a white supremacist in a racially motivated shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston in 2015, Haley gained national attention during her six-year term as governor of South Carolina when she led the removal of the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds.

In 2016, she provided the GOP’s response to then-President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.

Trump’s presidential rival in 2024 will be Republican Nikki Haley.

Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and United Nations representative, has declared her candidacy for President of the United States in 2024.

“Holding back now is not a good idea. The moment has come for a strong and proud America. She tweeted a link to a campaign video.

She joins her former employer Donald Trump as the second well-known Republican to declare for the election after he did so in November.

Mrs. Haley is a third-time candidate who is Indian American.

In 2021, the 51-year-old former governor said she will not challenge Trump for the presidency. She has since changed her mind, stressing the necessity of “generational transformation”.