Republican Nikki Haley set to enter 2024 presidential race

Former South Carolina governor and China hawk Nikki Haley is poised to announce her candidacy, reversing an earlier promise not to run if Donald Trump did.

Nikki Haley is set to become the second Republican to announce a 2024 presidential bid. Picture: Getty Images

Former South Carolina governor and China hawk Nikki Haley is poised to become the second Republican after Donald Trump to announce a 2024 presidential bid, reversing an earlier promise not to run if Mr Trump decided to chase a second term in the White House.

Unnamed sources ‘close to’ Ms Haley, 51, popped up in US media late Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) to reveal the former US ambassador to the United Nations – who has criticised Joe Biden for being soft on China – is set to announce her candidacy mid-February, in what is likely to be a crowded field.

Ms Haley, who published a political memoir late last year with the suggestive title of If You Want Something Done–Leadership Lessons from Bold Women, all but confirmed her intention in an interview on Fox News last month and hasn’t denied the latest reports.

It’s time for a new generation.
It’s time for new leadership.
And it’s time to take our country back.

America is worth the fight—and we’re just getting started. pic.twitter.com/L93Q6WirzD

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) January 21, 2023

The news came days after Mr Trump held the first of his 2024 campaign rallies, in New Hampshire and South Carolina, where Ms Haley was notably absent, last weekend, and later sought to discredit rising Republican star Florida governor Ron DeSantis from announcing his own, widely expected, campaign.

“When I hear he might run, I consider that very disloyal. But it’s not about loyalty, but to me it is,” Mr Trump told CNN journalists travelling with him on Trump Force One, referring to his former protégé, who won a second term as governor in a landslide in November.

The former president, whose own campaign got off to a bad start last year after calling to ‘terminate the constitution’ over his loss in 2020, later posted old footage of Mr DeSantis on social media in which the governor said he could be “somebody like a Paul Ryan very quickly”, a former Republican speaker and a political nemesis among Mr Trump’s fan base.

In 2021 Ms Haley said she wouldn’t run for president if Mr Trump did, an about face that points to Mr Trump’s declining hold on the GOP after an unexpectedly poor showing by the former president’s favoured candidates in the US midterm elections last year, which left Democrats in control of the Senate.

Nikki Haley is launching a 2024 Presidential campaign. She’s expected to announce any day now.

A person is only as good as their word. How can anyone trust her when she’s on video saying she wouldn’t run if Trump ran in 2024?

Looks like you can’t trust @NikkiHaley the liar. pic.twitter.com/5GYl3BuWVe

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) February 1, 2023

Ms Haley, stridently pro-Israel as US ambassador to the UN, was the guest of honour at the Scopus Foundation, a Jewish educational charity, in Melbourne in May last year.

Such a great time spent with the kids at Mt. Scopus College in Melbourne, Australia. They are learning early that being strong, courageous, and using the power of their voice matters. 💙#MtScopusCollege#FunTimesDownUnderpic.twitter.com/4bW8ze1bxB

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) May 23, 2022

According to political betting market PredictIt, Ms Haley is the third most likely to win the nomination, behind Mr Trump and Mr DeSantis, and ahead of her colleagues in the Trump administration, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and vice president Mike Pence, both expected to announce their own bids.

A poll of Republican voters conducted by Trafalgar in late January put Mr Trump first with 43 per cent support compared with Mr DeSantis (29 per cent) and Ms Haley, coming in third, on 22 per cent.

Ms Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, was the first female governor of South Carolina, serving from 2011 to 2017 after spending six years as a representative in the state’s lower house.

A failure to win the GOP nomination in the Republican primaries, which begins in around one year, could put Ms Haley in the box seat to become the winner’s running mate and potential vice president.