Who is Nikki Haley, Trump’s last obstacle to the Republican nomination?

She still hopes for what could be a huge surprise in the White House race. For two years, she carried Donald Trump’s voice on the international stage. Today, Nikki Haley still appears to be the final barrier between the former president and the Republican nomination for the presidential election in November.

After Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rallied behind Donald Trump on Sunday, a distant second in the Iowa caucuses that open the Republican primaries on Jan. 15, only Nikki Haley, who finished third, can actually still challenge him for a landslide victory in New Hampshire. .

According to Trump, a “globalist”.

To try to win, this former governor of South Carolina, who is the only woman and the new darling of the American right, presents a very classic conservative argument, that of a hypertrophied federal state, debt and taxes that are too heavy and an immigration system. There is an allegation of laxity. He advocates raising the retirement age for new entrants to the labor market to save the social security and health insurance systems from bankruptcy.

Donald Trump always calls him a “globalist”. “He loves the world, I love America first,” he said during a meeting in Iowa. He accuses her of wanting to “raise taxes, bleed Social Security” or even “open the borders,” on what grounds.

Quite similar programs

But, in reality, their programs hardly diverge, except for Ukraine, which Nikki Haley wants to continue to support in a big way, while Donald Trump prides himself on being able to mediate between Kiev and Moscow. War is therefore essentially a question of style and generation.

Despite her lack of international experience, Nikki Haley has been left behind less and less, despite her long-held appointment to the prestigious post of ambassador to the United Nations in 2017. “Deserving it or not, chaos follows,” she repeated in recent weeks, in a possible allusion to Donald Trump’s multiple impeachments. “We’re not going to survive another four years of chaos,” Nikki Haley, 52, asserted, putting the backs of outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden, 81, and her former boss, 77.

The candidate calls for “electing a new generation of leaders and leaving negativity and responsibilities behind us”. She intensified her criticism this weekend, publicly questioning the possible age-related alteration of Donald Trump’s “mental abilities.” He himself has been calling her “sparrow brain” for months. He apparently does not forgive her for this offense of lèse-majeste in going back on her promise not to run against him if she were a candidate in 2024.

Entered politics in 2004

Motivated by her remarkable performance during the debates between the Republican candidates, Nikki Haley claims these attacks are a sign of her increased momentum in the election, which Donald Trump did not mind participating in. She distinguished herself significantly by speaking more moderate than her rivals on abortion rights. The issue has brought his party a series of electoral disappointments after the Supreme Court struck down constitutional protections for abortion rights in the country. She declares herself in favor of a “national consensus” on the subject, both to prohibit “late-term abortion” but also to oppose prison terms for abortion in states that prohibit it.

Born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa, she is the daughter of some Indian immigrants of the Sikh faith. A mother of two, she is married to a National Guard officer currently stationed in Djibouti. She entered the political scene in 2004 with election to the legislature of her home state of South Carolina, then rose to national prominence during her 2010 campaign for governor.

Once elected, Nikki Haley steered her way to the right by showing hostility to unions and taxes as well as same-sex marriage or reluctance to welcome Syrian refugees into her state. On June 17, 2015, a white supremacist walked into a Charleston church and killed nine African-American worshipers. After a long refusal to do so, she then ordered the removal of the Confederate flag, a symbol of the state’s slavery past, from the South Carolina legislature. She will know in a few months whether her various positions have allowed her to achieve her goal: to become the first woman to occupy the Oval Office of the White House for four years.