Republican Nikki Haley announces she's running for president

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, announced her candidacy for president on Tuesday, becoming the first major challenger to former president Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination.

The announcement, delivered in a video, marks an about-face for the ex-Trump cabinet official, who said two years ago that she wouldn't challenge her former boss for the White House in 2024.

But she changed her mind in recent months, citing, among other things, the country's economic troubles and the need for "generational change."

"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 said. "I'm Nikki Haley and I'm running for president."

Haley, 51, is expected to launch her campaign with an event in Charleston, S.C., on Wednesday.

Haley has regularly boasted about her track record of defying political expectations, saying, "I've never lost an election, and I'm not going to start now."

If elected, Haley would be the nation's first female president and the first U.S. president of Indian descent.

In addition to battling Trump, Haley looks to defy history. Republican women running for president have failed to gain much traction in the primaries, a list that includes Elizabeth Dole (2000), Michele Bachmann (2012) and Carly Fiorina (2016).

As well, candidates from Trump's former administration and outside it are contemplating presidential bids.

Former vice-president Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo, both a secretary of state and CIA director in Trump's administration, have published books and upped their appearances in recent months ahead of expected decisions on whether to run.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, coming off an easy re-election in 2022, is among the governors past and present being closely watched.

New York-based Republican donor Eric Levine told the Associated Press that Haley is among the favoured Trump alternatives.

"I think as a woman of colour and a daughter of legal immigrants from India, she'd give the Democratic Party no reason to exist," Levine said. "I think she's a spectacular candidate."

Contentious Confederate flag decision

Born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa in 1972 in rural South Carolina, she has long spoken of a childhood in which she felt she didn't fit. She was raised in the Sikh faith with a mother who wore traditional saris, and a father clad in a turban.

Married to Michael Haley since 1996, the former accountant defeated the longest-serving member of South Carolina's House in her major first political campaign. After six years in the legislature, she was considered a long shot when she mounted her 2010 gubernatorial campaign.

The GOP field was filled with more experienced politicians, and at times, she faced blatant racism. Then-state Sen. Jake Knotts appeared on a talk show and used a racial slur in reference to Haley. He apologized, saying it was meant as a joke.

Still, Haley became the first woman and person of colour elected South Carolina's governor — and the nation's youngest state executive. After winning re-election in 2014, her second term was marred by crisis.

She spent weeks attending funerals of Black parishioners gunned down by a self-avowed white supremacist at a Charleston church in 2015. She pushed for and signed legislation to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds, where it had flown for more than 50 years.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Haley said she was "embarrassed" by then-candidate Trump's reluctance to disavow the KKK.

But shortly after Trump won the presidency, she agreed to serve as the new administration's ambassador to the United Nations, a cabinet-level position.

A rookie in international politics, Haley was an unconventional pick as envoy to the United Nations, where she helped spearhead the administration's efforts to combat what it alleged to be anti-American and anti-Israel actions by the international body, and address U.S. tension with its European allies and with Iran and North Korea.  

White House friction

During her tenure, the administration also withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council and the UN educational and scientific agency, for adopting positions it deemed to be hostile to Israel.

Neither Haley nor President Donald Trump gave a specific reason for her late 2018 resignation.

Trump said at the time the departure had been in the works for about six months, a timeline that coincided with a high-profile spat between Haley and the White House, when she drew the president's ire for previewing in a television appearance the administration's planned imposition of a new round of sanctions on Russia.

When the sanctions never materialized, White House officials said the plans had changed without Haley being briefed, and top economic adviser Larry Kudlow suggested Haley was confused.

"With all due respect, I don't get confused," Haley said in a sharply worded rejoinder to the West Wing.

Since that departure, Haley joined the board of aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. and hit the speaking circuit, reportedly commanding fees as high as $200,000 US. She also wrote two books.

Her public support for Trump continued even after the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, which followed weeks of baseless claims by Trump of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

"I'm really proud of the successes of the Trump administration. Whether it was foreign policy or domestic policy, we should embrace those," she tweeted three weeks after the Jan. 6 attack.