Washington: Donald Trump’s former UN ambassador Nikki Haley has become the first Republican to officially take on the twice-impeached president, calling for generational change as she seeks the party’s nomination for the White House.
The 51-year-old daughter of Indian immigrants made the widely expected announcement in a video posted online on Tuesday (US time), setting the scene for a newly combative phase of the 2024 campaign against her old boss.
Donald Trump and Nikki Haley in the Oval Office in 2018.Credit:AP
Drawing on her heritage, her foreign policy credentials and her record as a two-time governor of South Carolina, Haley cast herself as someone who was well-placed to take on foreign adversaries such as Russia and China, push back against the “woke” left and beat 80-year-old Joe Biden, who is poised to announce his plans to run for a second term in coming months.
“You should know this about me: I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels,” she said in her video.
The announcement makes Haley the first person to seek the Republican nomination against Trump, who has had a fairly low-key campaign ever since he announced in November that he intended to run again.
But jockeying ahead of next year’s primary race will intensify over the coming weeks and months, with potential contenders including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former vice-president Mike Pence, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununo and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.
By coming out early, Haley can get head start on fundraising, which will help strengthen her chances of outdoing a potentially crowded field of more popular Republican candidates.
But she has also made herself an easy target for Trump, particularly after claiming in 2021 that she wouldn’t challenge him if he ended up seeking another term in office.
When the former UN ambassador signalled earlier this month that she was planning to announce her candidacy, Trump posted a video of her making her 2021 remarks, with the taunt that she had to “follow her heart, not her honour.”
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Haley, however, made the case that it was time for a new leader, saying in her video: “Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections. That has to change.”
A reluctance to be an early target of Trump’s well-known wrath may be why some Republicans are yet to enter the race. Others may also be waiting to see if prosecutors help clear the path by charging him with any of the potential crimes for which he is under investigation.
These include meddling in the 2020 election, giving hush-money payments to a porn star and mishandling classified documents.
But while the former president is seen as a widely diminished figure after many of the extremist candidates he endorsed at last year’s mid-term elections failed to win seats, he still has enough support to win a multi-candidate primary race if Republicans aren’t able to coalesce around an alternative.
Republican presidential contenders for the 2016 election, Senator Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, Senator Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, take part in a debate.Credit:AP
This is what happened in 2016 when a cluttered field and the party’s “winner takes all” voting system allowed Trump to pick off his opponents – such as senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and former governor Jeb Bush – and succeed in several contests with roughly 25 per cent of support.
One survey of 1000 likely Republican primary and caucus voters released this month also found 28 per cent of the party’s primary voters were still so loyal to Trump they would back him even if he ran for the White House as an independent against the Republican and Democratic nominees.
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