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1 / 3 Photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP/TT
She excels in the debates, has a relatively positive message and is “only” 51 years old. Presidential aspirant, Republican and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley has a tailwind. This week she secured support from the wealthy and influential Koch family and its network.
Haley gives “America an opportunity to turn the page from the current political era,” writes Emily Seidel, CEO of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which is the political arm of the Koch business family and so-called super-pac (political action committee).
“She can shoulder the political leadership required to meet the country’s biggest challenges and ensure that our best days are ahead of us,” writes Seidel.
The announcement is a major blow to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is vying with Haley for second place in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Both he and Haley trail former President Donald Trump by more than 30 percentage points.
Trump has never received the AFP’s support directly, either in the 2016 or 2020 elections.
Make a difference?
Kansas-based Koch Enterprises is America’s second largest privately held company, active in oil, paper, energy and financial services, among others. The Koch family has long pushed issues such as low taxes and opposition to climate legislation and government health insurance. They stand for a more traditional conservatism that flourished before Donald Trump’s entry into the political arena.
For Nikki Haley, AFP’s support means she gets access to tens of millions of dollars that can be spent on television advertising and targeted campaigns. AFP is very well organized, especially in early primary states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Since last summer, the organization has had direct contact with a staggering 6 million primary election voters, either by phone or by knocking on doors, writes the AP news agency.
The question is, can it really make a difference, when it comes to the fight for the party’s presidential candidacy and Donald Trump’s giant leadership?
Want Trump
It is well known that the staunch Trump loyalists, the so-called Maga branch (Make America Great Again, Trump’s slogan), make up about half of the Republican electorate. But according to the compilation of current polls by the independent Real Clear Politics, fully 62 percent of the party’s supporters want to see Trump as the presidential candidate.
The corresponding figure for DeSantis is 13.6 percent and for Haley 9.6 percent.
Trump’s advantage is significantly smaller in Iowa and New Hampshire, where the primary campaign kicks off in January. And in South Carolina, where Nikki Haley was governor, she has 18.8 percent support compared to Trump’s 49 percent.
Sarah Longwell, Republican strategist and opinion expert, tells the news channel CNN that she personally believes that a Haley candidacy would be best for the party, the country and the world. But she is doubtful that it is realistic – unless Trump implodes.
– There is an incredibly small possibility of that happening, even with this (AFP’s) support, says Longwell.
– I know, after talking to Republican voters week in and week out, that they still want Trump.
THE FACTS Nikki Haley
Born in 1972 in Bamberg, South Carolina and was then named Nimrata Randhawa.
US Ambassador to the UN from January 2017 to the end of 2018.
First female and first Indian-American governor of the state of South Carolina (her parents immigrated from Punjab in India) 2011–2017.
During the 2016 election campaign, Haley was an outspoken critic of Donald Trump. In January 2016, she delivered the Republican response to then-President Barack Obama’s State of the Nation Address. Then she said, among other things, that no one who is willing to “work hard, follow our laws and love our traditions” should feel unwelcome in the United States. Trump responded by calling her “weak” on immigration. In October of that year, Haley swung and gave Trump her endorsement.
Accountant Haley has previously worked with recycling and worked in the family’s clothing business. She sat in South Carolina’s state congress between 2005 and 2011. As governor, she led, among other things, a cross-party initiative to remove the southern flag, which some perceive as a symbol of racism, from the state legislature.
Married to Michael Haley. The couple has two children.
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