Just 18 days ahead of the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was headed into the contest bolstered by increasing poll numbers, high-profile endorsements, and a campaign narrative that she is the only Republican who can defeat President Joe Biden during the 2024 election.
But her recent blunder in which she failed to mention slavery as a primary cause of the Civil War threatens to derail much of the goodwill Haley had built just before the first voters in the GOP primary decide who they want as the party’s next standard-bearer.
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The controversy comes at an inopportune moment as Haley attempts to bolster as much support as she can before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary scheduled eight days later. The former South Carolina governor has run a relatively cautious campaign that has steered clear of scandal and embarrassing headlines.
Even still, the havoc unleashed by her comments needs to be quelled quickly, Executive Director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition Timothy Head said.
“I do think that she has to kind of set the record straight on what she believes on the Civil War and its causes, etc.,” Head told the Washington Examiner. “But a lot of this is it’s just kind of the nature of being No. 2 or No. 3 candidate in a major race. People are just going to poke holes in everything that you say.”
The scandal first began during a town hall in Berlin, New Hampshire, on Wednesday when an attendee questioned Haley about the origins of the war. “I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run,” Haley said, “the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.”
At no point did Haley mention slavery, which most scholars agree was a major contention point leading to the Civil War. It didn’t take long before voices across both political parties, including Biden, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), and Vivek Ramaswamy, spread the exchange on social media and repeatedly attacked Haley.
Haley sought to tamp down the attacks Thursday morning when she claimed that “of course, the Civil War was about slavery. That’s the easy part of it” in an interview.
At a different event Thursday morning, Haley further clarified her comments. “We know the Civil War was about slavery. But it was also more than that. It was about the freedoms of every individual,” Haley said. “It was about the role of government. For 80 years, America had the decision and the moral question of whether slavery was a good thing and whether government, economically, culturally, any other reasons, had a role to play in that. By the grace of God, we did the right thing, and slavery is no more.”
But her competitors and other detractors aren’t going to let the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador forget she flubbed her original remarks on the Civil War.
“The shocking part isn’t that Nikki failed to mention slavery. It’s that she failed to mention the 10th amendment,” Ramaswamy commented on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “When you try to be everything to everyone, you’re nothing to anyone. A perfect puppet for the corrupt establishment.”
Rick Wilson of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project also hit Haley for her donors, writing in a statement on X, “I’m sure all the major donors who have flooded Nikki Haley with cash in the past few weeks are super happy they’re backing someone who pretends slavery wasn’t the cause of the Civil War. Bra-vo.”
“I am disgusted but I’m not surprised — this is what Black South Carolinians have come to expect from Nikki Haley, and now the rest of the country is getting to see her for who she is,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement. “Nikki Haley’s comments tonight were a slap in the face to Black voters, who she has turned her back on time and again — from championing the Confederate flag to trivializing Black History Month — and they’ll turn their backs on her at the polls.”
Of her competitors, it’s been DeSantis who has heavily slammed Haley the most, claiming she’s not ready for prime time. As Haley has risen in the polls, she and DeSantis have lambasted each other as they scramble to become the top candidate behind Trump. The Civil War dust-up may be another instance in which their acrimony allows Trump to appear above the fray.
“I think Trump and Trump’s team are perfectly happy to watch Haley and DeSantis move into bloodsport here,” Head said.
Yet, it’ll be both Haley and her campaign’s job to see if they can “ward that off in the next four weeks,” Head added. “And that’s one of the ways that top-tier candidates prove their mettle is by taking on mainstream media narratives and sending them off and then pivoting to the core of your message, and I think for her has been a strong message for the last two months or longer, but this is definitely where she’ll have to kind of prove that mettle.”
The Haley campaign, however, continues to adhere to the narrative that she will defeat Biden.
“Everyone from Joe Biden to Ron DeSantis is attacking Nikki for one reason: She’s the only candidate on the rise. Voters are continuing to rally around her message for a strong and proud America,” a spokesperson said.
Mike Murphy, a veteran GOP strategist, claimed in his Thursday newsletter that Haley will “mostly recover, but this is a big speed bump she didn’t need which will squelch her surge, at least for a while.”
“Haley’s mess will also embolden Chris Christie to keep his silly spoiler’s campaign alive, rationalizing that Haley’s blunder will now open the door to his long pined-for surge to the White House,” Murphy continued.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s campaign, which he is banking on the New Hampshire primary, has long been seen as a long shot due to his unpopularity among GOP voters and Haley snagging the endorsement of Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH).
Haley has shown in the past she can respond to tough moments with a measured response. After the murder of nine black members of Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, then-Gov. Haley signed legislation removing the Confederate battle flag from the statehouse grounds in 2015.
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This is another moment in which Haley’s next steps could determine the course of her campaign.
“No one becomes President in the modern era without adroitly navigating around mistakes and unplanned events,” wrote Henry Olsen, a political columnist and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. “The last few hours have been awful for Haley. She will largely determine whether the days that follow will lead to her demise or her recovery.”
