She is officially the third Republican candidate to run in the race for the White House. And therefore the second to oppose former President Donald Trump, candidate since last November, whom no one had dared to challenge in 2020. Despite the candidacy of the former mayor of the small town of Cranston, Steve Laffey, Nikki Haley, is considered by the American media, including the New York Times, as Donald Trump’s first major rival within the “Grand Old Party” (GOP, or Republicans) for the 2024 presidential election.
“I am a candidate for the presidential election,” the 50-year-old said in a video to her supporters posted on Twitter This morning. The former diplomat at the UN under the Trump administration had been approached for several weeks to announce her entry into the competition for the White House. She had however promised, in 2021, not to run if Donald Trump was a candidate. “Many observers consider that Trump is finished, comments the specialist in the United States Jean-Eric Branaa. If candidates declare themselves, which was not the case in 2020, it is because they think so too” . Changing her mind in recent months, the Republican evokes, among other things, the country’s economic difficulties and the need for a “generational change”, a nod to Trump’s 76th birthday.
Trump loyal until Capitol events
Nevertheless, in the United States as well as internationally, Nikki Haley is closely linked to Donald Trump. After being the first female governor of the state of South Carolina, where she is from, she was for two years the United States ambassador to the United Nations, directly appointed by the Trump administration. Two tough years during which Trump announced the country’s exit from the Paris agreement and the recognition of Jerusalem, the holy city, as the capital of Israel. “Nikki Haley seemed credible before this United Nations Assembly, which was a little more suspicious of Donald Trump every day,” observes Jean-Eric Branaa. “But over the course of his declarations, we discovered his radicalism, his climato-skepticism which is as strong as that of Trump, and this withdrawn side about America”. We owe him in particular this sentence at the time of the vote of the Member States of the United Nations to criticize Washington’s position to move its embassy to Jerusalem: “Thursday, there will be a vote at the UN criticizing our choice. And yes, the States United will take names (of those who voted against us, editor’s note),” she said at the time.
“At that time, she had shocked a lot of people. She made Trump in the text, but in reality it was Nikki Haley”, underlines again the specialist of the United States who recalls that the former governor of South Carolina comes from hardline Republicans. “She has been a member of the Tea Party since its inception,” he adds. This political movement created in protest to the Obama presidency, which opposes the growth of the federal state and its taxes. The name of his program, “Stand for America” (“Standing up for America”) also sounds in the continuity of that of Donald Trump (“Make America Great Again”). A slogan to which she adds: “Fighting for a strong and proud America”, which means “Fighting for a strong and proud America”.
According to Jean-Eric Branaa, Nikki Haley has been very loyal to Donald Trump. “She is a pragmatic woman, who is not a weather vane,” he says. She nevertheless distances herself from the former president after the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 by his supporters. A few months later, she declares that the ex-president will not be able to seek a new mandate, having “dropped” the Republican Party and having “fallen too low”, by persisting in refusing his defeat in the presidential election of 2020.
A “new breath” for the Republicans
In her self-promotional video released on Tuesday, Nikki Haley takes great care never to quote Donald Trump. Even if we guess that some spades are intended for him. In her message, Nikki Haley calls for a “new generation of leaders” and a new lease of life for the Grand Old Party. “Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections,” she said. “That has to change.” For the specialist of the United States, Jean-Eric Branaa, it is a real tackle to Donald Trump. “In short, she criticizes him for not having succeeded in uniting the popular vote and presents herself as someone who can do it”.
In addition, if this conservative has many similarities with Donald Trump’s program, she is completely out of touch with racism. From the first seconds of her video, she presents herself as the daughter of Indian immigrants, “grateful” and “lucky” to live in the United States. “I am the daughter of an Indian family, neither white nor black, but different”, she declares at the outset. “My mother always told me that you shouldn’t look at the differences, but at the similarities,” she continues. “Nikki Haley is going to campaign on it,” bets Jean-Eric Branaa. “She represents this America of the future which is neither white nor black, like Kamala Harris, but which is mixed. She will have an innovative message in the Republican Party, which there has not been for a long time”. According to several observers, Nikki Haley could reach an electorate that does not usually vote Republican, as Donald Trump’s former rival candidate in the 2016 Republican primary, Jeb Bush, wanted to do by turning to the Latin American populations.
A credible candidate?
After having gone it alone for three months, the former American president is gradually seeing the ranks of his Republican rivals fill up. Donald Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, his ex-head of diplomacy, Mike Pompeo, the governors of Virginia and New Hampshire… Many Republicans are considering a possible announcement soon. And according to Jean-Eric Branaa, Nikki Haley can pull out of a multitude of applications. “In the American electoral system, she has a chance. She is a very credible candidate, a major challenger against Trump”, he opines while the first opinion polls – to be taken with tweezers – demonstrate for Nikki Haley isn’t necessarily Donald Trump’s biggest threat.
For the New York Times, “the fact that the former president has so far not invented an insulting nickname or attacked Ms. Haley is perhaps a sign that he does not perceive her as a major threat.” The latter will also probably face a competitor coming directly from his state: South Carolina senator Tim Scott is also very openly flirting with a candidacy. But the spotlight is mainly on Ron DeSantis – Governor of Florida and rising star of the party, placed at the top of the voting intentions in some polls. He hasn’t officially entered the race either. After a planned rally in South Carolina on Wednesday, she will travel to New Hampshire and then Iowa next week for her first public meetings.