Washington, Feb 21
Nikki Haley isn’t going anywhere. She has said as much behind closed doors at fundraisers, reiterated it in recent news media appearances and made the promise on the stump, in front of audiences.
And on Tuesday, just days before a heated Republican primary on her home turf, Haley said it again.
“I feel no need to kiss the ring,” she said in Greenville, South Carolina, pledging to continue her pursuit of the 2024 Republican presidential nomination beyond Saturday’s primary in South Carolina, her home state. “I have no fear of Trump’s retribution. I’m not looking for anything from him. My own political future is of zero concern.”
In a “state of the race” speech, @NikkiHaley vows to stay in the GOP presidential race, and says she is “far from” dropping out.
In what was perhaps her most forceful speech since she began her presidential campaign last year, she pushed back against skeptics who have long urged her to drop her long-shot bid for the nomination.
Describing herself as David taking on Goliath, she said she was fighting not only someone bigger than herself but also “for something bigger” than herself. She argued that while other members of her party had given into a “herd mentality” and fallen in line behind former President Donald Trump, she would not.
Haley also contended that many of the Republican politicians “who now publicly embrace Trump privately dread him” and were “too afraid” to speak up, despite knowing he had been “a disaster” for the party. She said Americans deserved a choice and “not a Soviet-style election where there’s only one candidate and he gets 99% of the vote.”
“We don’t anoint kings in this country,” she said. “We have elections. And Donald Trump, of all people, should know we don’t rig elections.”
This combination photo shows Donald Trump and Nikki Haley reacting after the New Hampshire primary results on January 23. (Photos via agencies)
This combination photo shows Donald Trump and Nikki Haley reacting after the New Hampshire primary results on January 23. (Photos via agencies)
The remarks — delivered in calm, dulcet tones before an invite-only audience of about 50 people, not including the press — were her sharpest yet against Trump and the way he has remade the Republican Party in his image. After taking a calibrated approach toward Trump for much of the race, Haley has assumed a more determined and combative stance as she has become his last major rival from a field of more than a dozen candidates.
But Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and a United Nations ambassador under Trump, trails her former boss in her home state by double digits. The national outlook for her campaign does not look much brighter.
In a memo from two advisers sent out Tuesday, Trump, who for months fueled lies that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him, suggested that Haley was “like any wailing loser hellbent on an alternative reality” and that she had been “rejected by those who know her the best” in South Carolina.
The memo also contended that she had no path to the nomination, pointing to her string of losses so far.
Trump was expected to make his own appearance later Tuesday in Greenville at a Fox News town-hall-style event. Officials with his campaign believe that he will amass enough delegates to secure the nomination by March 19, if not a week earlier.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley (Photo via her Facebook page)
As questions about when she will leave the race continue to dog her campaign, Haley has reiterated her promise to stay in through Super Tuesday, on March 5, regardless of Saturday’s outcome. Some of her closest allies have not ruled out the possibility that she will stay in even longer.
Her campaign has continued to collect funds from top-dollar donors and to announce the elected officials, business leaders and prominent community members helping lead her efforts across the country. Those include teams in Alaska, California, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Washington.
Haley is planning to embark on a gruelling travel schedule after South Carolina, with stops in Michigan, which will award delegates through both a primary Feb. 27 and a convention March 2, and Super Tuesday states such as Utah and Colorado.
