Underdog syndrome: Meet Nikki Haley, Republican presidential candidate

Nimrata “Nikki” Randhawa Haley (51) is a conflicted soul if you believe her autobiography Can’t Is Not an Option. In December, before the Christmas holidays, the former US Ambassador to the United Nations announced she would use the holiday break to decide on a possible run for the White House in 2024. Earlier this week, she announced her decision to run, leading to barbs from her mentor, Donald Trump, who said: “I’m glad she’s running. I want her to follow her heart — even though she made a commitment that she would never run against who she called the greatest president of her lifetime.”

He added: “She should do what she wants to do and not be bound by the fact that she said she would never do it.” This was the easiest way of attacking her credibility. Haley faced the same sorts of dilemmas early on in her career when voters wanted her to be Christian, she said she respected Christianity, doggedly stuck to being Sikh but confessed that as she did not know Punjabi, she had little idea what the Sikh scriptures contained beyond what her parents had explained to her. However, one has to cut her some slack: after all, she and her parents arrived from Punjab to the US in the 1960s in a small town in South Carolina as neither black nor white immigrants.

Say this for Haley: she is not wanting in courage and conviction. Her belief in US’s Republican Party may have been triggered at 12 when she began doing bookkeeping for her mother’s small business and realised that the greatest hurdles small business faced was from the government via sometimes irrational taxation. She committed herself to a slate that promised low government involvement in business and chose the Republican Party to take her belief forward.

She represented the 87th District in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 2005 to 2010. In 2005, Haley was elected chairman of the freshman caucus and in 2006 was elected as majority whip in the South Carolina General Assembly. This was not a small thing. South Carolina was staunchly Republican but looked at her rise with scepticism. She was elected governor in 2010 by a small majority, and her constant refrain has been that she is fighting a triple front war: a woman in a party dominated by men, a brown-skinned woman in a party of predominantly white people and young, very young, in an organisation that likes old money and blue blood. Haley has been a pro-lifer her entire political career, calling for Roe vs Wade to be referred back to legislators and believes Roe vs Wade should not be the factor defining feminism.

This is where the problem lies, though it is not clear if Haley herself can see the contradictions in her political positions. Vis-à-vis Trump, Haley is projecting herself within the party as a liberal mainstream version of Trump. But last week, in her campaign video, Haley accused China of committing “genocide” in reference to the country’s treatment of the Uyghur Muslim population. She said Russia and China were out to provoke the US. “They all think we can be bullied and kicked around,” Haley said. “You should know this about me. I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.” Haley used the recent incidents of Chinese spy balloons flying over US airspace to suggest the country needs to show “strength” against China. But when she announced in 2018 that the US would impose more sanctions on Russia for using chemical weapons against civilians in Syria, the White House contradicted her and she resigned from her position shortly thereafter.

At this point, the chance of her becoming the presidential nominee of the Republicans is in some doubt — largely because many in her party are not sure what she stands for. Orson Porter, senior managing director of CEO advisory, Teneo, and an expert on US domestic politics, says: “I would put her chances at about 10 per cent. She could be placed on someone’s ticket, but her comments about being supportive of Trump’s candidacy make it harder to be an alternative.” Porter says if Trump does not get the nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is a more probable choice given that he has gone public in attacking “liberal orthodoxies in government and culture”. Porter says other probables could be the Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin.

Money is not the issue. Porter says Haley has quietly amassed quite the infrastructure to make a bid as her non-profit group, Stand for America, raised about $8.6 million in 2021 to spend heavily on digital content, direct mail campaigns, and message development. By contrast, President Trump’s non-profit, known as the America First Policy Institute, reported revenue of around $14.2 million.

In her biography, Haley says she is proud of being an underdog. It is not clear if the Republicans are ready to back underdogs just yet.