Nikki Haley Announces Presidential Bid

02 March, 2023

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The 2024 presidential election may seem like it is still far in the future, but a second Republican candidate has now entered the race. On February 14, 2023, Nikki Haley announced that she will challenge former president Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. (Donald Trump announced his campaign in November 2022.) This Election Central story takes a closer look at Nikki Haley’s political career and her campaign announcement.

Who is Nikki Haley?

You may already recognize Haley’s name. That’s because she is no newcomer to politics. From 2017 to 2018, she served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under former president Trump. Before that, she served as the first female governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017.

Nimrata Nikki Randhawa was born in 1972 in rural South Carolina to parents who had immigrated from India. (After her marriage, she changed her surname to Haley.) Her father, Ajit Randhawa moved to Bamberg, South Carolina, in 1969 to teach at Voorhees College. Her mother, Raj Kaur Randhawa earned a law degree and was a middle school social studies teacher in South Carolina before running a successful business. Haley helped her mother with the business’s accounting as a teenager and later graduated from Clemson University with a degree in accounting.

Haley was first inspired to enter politics after attending a speech given by former First Lady Hillary Clinton. Haley went to see Clinton give the keynote address at a leadership institute at Birmingham University. Clinton said that for women who want to run for office, there will always be people telling you why you shouldn’t do it, which makes it even more important to do it. Haley then decided to run for election in 2004 for the South Carolina House of Representatives. She challenged Larry Koon, who was then South Carolina’s longest-serving legislative incumbent. She defeated Koon in a runoff election.

After serving in the state House of Representatives, Haley ran for governor in 2010 and won by a narrow four percentage points. She was reelected to the governor’s office in 2015. She resigned from that role on the same day that she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be Donald Trump’s United Nation’s ambassador.

Her Campaign Announcement

In her campaign announcement video, which was posted to Twitter on February 14, 2023, she talks about being the daughter of immigrants and how her parents always said how lucky the family was to live in the United States. She emphasized a record of economic and population growth in South Carolina while she was governor. The video also shows Haley leading her state after a racially motivated shooting occurred at an African American church in Charleston in June 2015.

What Does She Stand For?

In her campaign announcement video, Haley positions herself as the new face and generation of the Republican Party. She provides 5 themes for her presidential campaign: