CHARLESTON, South Carolina — Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley urged Republican primary voters to turn the page on the past and put their trust in “a new generation,” criticizing President Joe Biden and indirectly challenging former President Donald Trump during her first speech as a presidential candidate.
“We’re ready, ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past,” she told supporters Wednesday in Charleston. “If you’re tired of losing, then put your trust in a new generation. And if you want to win, not just as a party, but as a country, then stand with me.”
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Haley, 51, entering the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is only the second major announcement of what is expected to be a crowded field. The two-term South Carolina governor and first-generation American trails Trump, the only other major declared candidate, and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in early polling. Trump notched 43% of the vote among registered Republicans in a Reuters-Ipsos poll published Tuesday, DeSantis 31%, former Vice President Mike Pence 7%, and Haley 4%.
Haley alluded to her standing Wednesday, reminding those gathered at the Charleston Visitor Center and Bus Shed that when she contested the governorship in 2010, her opponent was South Carolina’s longest-serving legislator and “no one said I had a shot.” She went on to lead the state through the 2015 Charleston church shooting.
“People said, ‘Nikki who?’ But together, we won,” she said. “Then we cut taxes, created thousands of jobs, and revitalized our economy. Business journals started calling South Carolina the ‘Beast of the Southeast.'”
Haley also underscored her foreign policy credentials, chops developed during her two years as Trump’s ambassador to the U.N. from 2017 to 2018. She recalled “taking names” of “dictators, murderers, and thieves” and was introduced Wednesday by the mother of Otto Warmbier, the Ohio college student who was released from a North Korean prison in 2017 in a vegetative state, dying shortly afterward.
“When America is distracted, the world is less safe. And today, our enemies think the American era has passed,” she said. “They’re wrong. America is not past our prime. It’s just that our politicians are past theirs.”
Although she declined to take on Trump by name as she seeks to keep his base onside, Haley had no qualms ripping Biden for relying “on big government” and not the people.
“They have us spiraling toward socialism, with a new trillion-dollar spending bill every few months and a national debt over $30 trillion,” she said. “But there’s something else eating away at our national core. On Biden and Harris’s watch, a self-loathing has swept our country.”
But although criticizing Biden, she echoed some of the 80-year-old president’s favored rhetoric, reiterating the “best days are yet to come” if we “unite” and “fight to save our country.”
“Unity does not come from faint hearts or watered-down compromises. That just leaves everyone wanting more,” she said. “Real national unity comes from boldly proclaiming our national purpose and persuading opponents to join us.”
Haley, too, reflected on being the daughter of Indian immigrants, the wife of a combat veteran, and the mother of two children as she tries to raise her name recognition and create a lane for herself before others announce their own presidential campaigns.
Trump, one of the Republicans to whom Haley refers as losing the popular vote in their respective presidential elections, publicly welcomed her into the fray Tuesday, telling her to “follow her heart and do what she wants to do.” Haley previously said she would not run against Trump.
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In her announcement video, Haley spoke of being “strong” and “proud,” fiscal responsibility, and securing the border.
Haley now travels to the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire as Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) launches his own national listening tour in Charleston on Thursday. Other possible candidates include former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Govs. Chris Sununu (R-NH) and Glenn Youngkin (R-VA), and former Govs. Larry Hogan (R-MD) and Asa Hutchinson (R-AK).
