Haleymentum
Anti-Trump Republicans seem to have found their candidate in the former UN Ambassador & South Carolina Governor. Who is Nikki Haley, and can she win the primary and defeat Biden?
In a Republican stage marred by the absence of its front-runner, former President Donald Trump, Nikki Haley stood dignified and composed as the men traded petty insults and doled out repetitive soundbites. The former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor demolished the surging Vivek Ramaswamy on national security and foreign policy, panned other Republicans on the stage for contributing to the national debt, and successfully put Democrats on the defensive on the abortion issue.
Many Republicans have been on a wild goose chase, searching for the prophesized candidate that can serve as an alternative to the defeated Mr. Trump. A candidate who, ideally, would hold on to Mr. Trump’s steady support in the rural regions of the United States and snatch back the suburban voters whose last red ballots were cast for Mitt Romney. Party establishment and many conservatives seemed giddy at the prospect of the candidacy of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, whose 19.4 percent win over Charlie Crist stood in stark contrast to the defeats of Trump backed candidates in the 2022 midterm elections. Mr. DeSantis was young, had executive and congressional experience, and did not waste time tilting at windmills like so many election deniers. With a financial backing by powerful Super Pac’s and donors, not seen since the campaigns of Jeb Bush & Mitt Romney, he belatedly entered the race in a failed campaign announcement on X, formerly known as Twitter, which has served as a metaphor for his campaign — jarred, broken, and an outright disaster. Unfortunately, Mr. DeSantis has shown an inability to compel voters and sufficiently present himself as an alternative to Mr. Trump, his subsequent drop in recent polling reflected this.
Five-hundred miles north and two months earlier, Nikki Haley announced a presidential bid that, in a different pre-Trump era, would have immediately cemented her status as front-runner and potential nominee. A first-generation American and daughter of Indian immigrants, Nikki Haley enjoyed an immediate rise to prominence in an ever-diversifying GOP. Mrs. Haley graduated from Clemson University with a degree in accounting and worked in the private sector before feeling a call to public office owing to inspiration from the most unlikely of sources — Hillary Clinton.
Speaking to the New York Times, Mrs. Haley confided that “Everybody was telling me why I shouldn’t run: I was too young, I had small children, I should start at the school board level. I went to Birmingham University, and Hillary Clinton was the keynote speaker on a leadership institute, and she said that when it comes to women running for office, there will be everybody that tells you why you shouldn’t, but that’s all the reasons why we need you to do it, and I walked out of there thinking, ‘That’s it. I’m running for office.’”
In 2004, she threw her hat into the Republican primary for a seat in the state house of representatives challenging the incumbent Larry Koon. South Carolina is no stranger to smear campaigns, having hosted a vicious battle between candidates George W. Bush and John McCain in a primary four years earlier — Mrs. Haley’s campaign faced the same mudslinging. Koon’s attacks flew in labeling her a ‘housekeeper,’ declaring her a false Christian, and picturing her with her father with his turban (presumably with the intention of feeding off an increase in religious intolerance in wake of 9/11.) Against all odds, and in wake of nothing but relentless negative attacks, she managed to get 40 percent of the vote, trailing Koon by 2 points - enough to force a runoff election. Mrs. Haley emerged victorious 55-45 percent in the subsequent runoff and de facto general election (the Democrats did not field a nominee.)
Popular among her peers in the state legislature, Mrs. Haley soon found herself competing in another longshot bid – for governor. Despite the backing of incumbent Mark Sanford, before the scandals related to his mistress, she was both last in polling and fundraising against the lieutenant-governor Andre Bauer, attorney general Henry McMaster, and congressman Gresham Barrett. Mrs. Haley once again found herself on the defensive.
State senator Jake Knotts, a perfect embodiment of the decline of civility seen too often in modern politics, cautioned voters against Haley on a radio show warning that “We already got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor’s mansion.” Besides the already ludicrous insinuation that President Obama was a Muslim (as if anything would be wrong with that to begin with) the conflating of Sikhs and Muslims into one religion by the Senator did nothing but highlight his own ignorance and general stupidity. Mrs. Haley was raised as a Sikh, but later converted to Christianity at the age of twenty-four. She would never apologize for her past or beliefs on the campaign, proudly boasting how she is the “proud daughter of Indian parents who remind us every day how blessed we are to live in this country.”
As if any evidence was needed of her ability to unite, she managed to secure the lucrative endorsements of governors Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney, who bear about as much ideological similarity as Coke does to Pepsi. Mrs. Haley then won her primary and eked out a hard-fought win amidst a series of scandals by the prior Republican administration. She was only the second Indian American elected governor in the country, and the first non-white and first woman governor of South Carolina.
Her tenure was effective and brought an era of prosperity to the state. 400,000 more people were employed by the time of her departure. She showed a strong resilience against a cohort of misguided confederate apologists, by ordering the Confederate flag to be removed from the state capital – permanently. This was in wake of the tragic 2015 Charleston church shooting where she received plaudits from both sides of the spectrum. Rumors of a presidential run began to fill the airwaves. She delivered a denouncement of Republican front-runner Donald Trump in her state of the union rebuttal imploring Americans to ‘resist the temptation of following the siren call of our loudest voices.’ Was she setting herself up to enter the race?
She sat it out. She instead delivered a crucial endorsement to senator Marco Rubio, who like her was a child of immigrants and presented a compelling personal narrative on the American dream. Denouncing Mr. Trump and blasting him for his failure to disavow white supremacists she proclaimed he was the example of “what we teach our kids not to do in Kindergarten.” Mr. Trump, in typical fashion and a prime example of his decorum, sneered on twitter that “The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!” She reluctantly voted for Mr. Trump in the general election, one that she clearly expected him to lose as evidenced by her planned post-election interview with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press as the face of a ‘post-Trump Republican Party.’
Who could have imagined that a few months later she would be ushered in to one of the most important cabinet roles in Mr. Trump’s administration? Originally floated along with Mitt Romney, John Bolton, and Rex Tillerson for secretary of state she allegedly declined the position. Insisting that she was a “policy girl” and wanted to be a crucial voice in matters of national security the President-elect subsequently announced her designation as his ambassador to the United Nations. Mrs. Haley was easily confirmed by the US Senate ninety-six votes to four, and officially assumed her position 7 days after Mr. Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
Mrs. Haley served as UN ambassador for one year, occasionally coming at odds with the President's rhetoric. She wrote in her memoir at her disappointment at the president’s failings to adequately condemn the disturbing white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, penning that “A leader’s words matter in these situations. And the president’s words had been hurtful and dangerous.”
In matters of record, not rhetoric, she was front and center for Mr. Trump’s back and forth clash with Kim Jong Un during the escalation of tensions in the Korean peninsula. Mrs. Haley successfully lobbied for the banning of exports worth $1 billion against North Korea in what was one of the largest sanctions ever pressed against a regime. She praised Mr. Trump’s earlier missile strike on Syria because of Assad’s usage of chemical weapons. Despite this, she clarified that the position of the United States was no longer to remove Assad from power. Haley denounced Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism in her first session as president of the UN Security Council and accused the U.N. of having "bullied Israel for a very long time."
Mrs. Haley expressed welcomingly hawkish stances against the Iranian regime and correctly held them accountable for sponsoring terrorist groups in the Middle East. She also was aggressive against China, denouncing their forced religious conversions and internment of the Uyghur populace. Mrs. Haley eventually left the Trump administration by her own volition — one of the few Trump appointees to leave whilst maintaining his favor.
Mrs. Haley seems to have always aspired to go as far as possible and just who can blame her? A child of immigrants becoming governor of a formerly segregationist slave state is an awe-inspiring tale and a motivating reminder of the reality of the American dream. Defending herself against allegations of being overly ambitious she quipped: “If being ambitious is good at your job, then fine, you can call me ambitious. I will just consider myself a badass.”
Six years later, on the campaign trail, she has shown herself a confident politician who has a natural appeal with audiences and no markings of inauthenticity. Mrs. Haley found herself on the receiving end of good publicity in the aftermath of the Republican debate, with 46 percent of viewers saying that they planned to vote for her. With website traffic surging tenfold, emerging as the second most googled candidate, and $1 million raised in fundraising just three days after the debate it is easy to see why she is not only personally compelling but also an appealing political prospect to an anti-Trump wing of the party.
Can Mrs. Haley successfully articulate classic conservative principles and make her case to voters to dispel with a set-in stone Trump nomination? Rather than give into the vicious double-edged sword that right-wing populism entails, she instead makes a plea to the country as a competent, empathetic, and strong candidate who is capable of defeating Joe Biden in a general election. Electability is a central issue of her campaign, and with the upcoming debate in September, she will find another avenue to make her case to the American people. If her second night is as successful as her first, Mr. Trump should find himself genuinely concerned.