Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley released a new video and an itinerary for her upcoming visits to New Hampshire, all but confirming that her “special announcement” scheduled for next week in South Carolina is the launch of her 2024 presidential bid.
Haley is scheduled to appear at the Exeter Town Hall at 6 p.m. on Thursday, February 16, and at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College at 6 p.m. the next day.
Haley, who served as President Donald Trump’s U.N. ambassador, told the Associated Press in 2021 she would support him if he ran for a second term. “I would not run if President Trump ran, and I would talk to him about it.” But in recent months, she has made it clear she was interested in entering the race, campaigning for GOP U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc in New Hampshire last fall, for example.
She has, however, spoken to Trump about running.
“She called me and she asked me about it, and I told her she should follow her heart,” Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt last week. “She said numerous times, ‘I would never run if our president runs. He was a great president, etc., etc. But she’s a very ambitious person. She just couldn’t stay in her seat.”
Haley, 51, was elected governor of South Carolina in 2010 running as a Tea Party conservative and political outsider. She served two terms, making national headlines by getting the state legislature to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse grounds.
When she makes her formal announcement, she will be the first major candidate to enter the GOP primary and take on Trump.
A New Hampshire Journal poll released at the end of January found Haley in fourth place at four percent among Granite State Republicans. Trump led the field at 37 percent, followed by Gov. DeSantis (R-Fla.) at 26 percent and Gov. Chris Sununu at 13 percent.
Haley was viewed as an assertive, some say combative, U.N. ambassador. She embraced that branding in the video she released Wednesday.
“I wear heels. It’s not a fashion statement,” Haley says in the video. “It’s because if I see something wrong, we’re gonna kick ’em every single time.”
