Nikki Haley has by no means misplaced an election.
When she was elected governor of South Carolina in 2010, she was the state’s first girl within the position and the youngest governor within the US.
She was additionally solely the second individual of Indian descent to function a state governor.
She grew to become the primary Republican to problem Donald Trump for the nomination when she introduced her run in February.
The pair are removed from strangers. From being a pointy critic throughout Mr Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign, she went on to serve in his presidential cupboard because the US ambassador to the United Nations.
The 51-year-old has gained a repute within the Republican Party as a stable conservative, capable of handle problems with gender and race in a extra credible trend than her opponents.
Ms Haley has additionally pitched herself as robust on international coverage, proclaiming in a promotional video that China and Russia had been “on the march”, including: “You ought to know this about me: I do not put up with bullies.
“And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.”
The Israel-Hamas battle has brightened the highlight on international coverage in a approach that would profit Ms Haley, some commentators have argued, as voters key in on her worldwide expertise and time on the UN.
Ms Haley is a robust supporter of Israel however believes America ought to have solely a restricted position within the battle.
Early life, discrimination and claims of ‘whitewashing’
Ms Haley was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa in 1972 in South Carolina, to Indian Sikh dad and mom.
She has obtained criticism for not going by her first identify – some accused her of denying her heritage and “whitewashing” herself.
She addressed this in a publish on X, previously Twitter, in 2021: “Nikki is a Punjabi word that means little one. It’s my middle name on my birth certificate.”
She has not used her maiden identify since she was 24, when she married Michael Haley. They had each Sikh and Methodist ceremonies and a yr later she transformed to Christianity. The couple have two kids.
Ms Haley started working at her mom’s clothes boutique as a young person, doing the accounts from the age of 13.
She went on to check accounting at Clemson University in South Carolina.
Ms Haley has talked concerning the discrimination she confronted rising up in the one Indian household within the small South Carolina city of Bamberg.
She was disqualified from a magnificence pageant as a result of she was neither black nor white, and instructed by classmates she could not play ball except she picked a staff – which she mentioned was choosing a race.
“Issues like that kept coming up throughout my childhood and into adulthood. A white legislature would call me a “raghead,” and a black legislature would call me a “conservative with a tan’,” she told the New York Times in 2012.
But she has said, despite these incidents, she does not believe the US to be institutionally racist.
“That is a lie. America isn’t a racist nation,” she told the Republican National Convention in 2020.
Unlikely inspiration for a Republican career
Hillary Clinton was the reason Ms Haley first ran for office, she told the New York Times.
“Everybody was telling me why I should not run: I used to be too younger, I had young children, I ought to begin on the college board degree.”
At a talk where Ms Clinton was the keynote speaker, she told the audience the reasons women are told not to run are the exact ones why they should.
“I walked out of there pondering ‘That’s it. I’m working for workplace’.”
She won a seat in the South Carolina state legislature in 2004, serving three terms before her election as governor.
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Confederate flag victory as South Carolina governor
Ms Haley was elected governor of South Carolina in 2010.
In the wake of a white supremacist murdering 9 black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015, she handed a legislation eradicating the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state capitol.
The transfer attracted widespread reward – together with from Barack Obama – and helped put her on Time journal’s record of the 100 most influential individuals on the planet.
However she was later criticised for calling the flag an emblem of “heritage” for some Southerners.
She appointed Tim Scott, now a rival for the Republican nomination, to the US Senate in 2012.
Turbulent relationship with Trump
Ms Haley began as a critic of Mr Trump throughout his 2016 marketing campaign, saying he was “everything a governor doesn’t want in a president”.
She initially backed different candidates earlier than saying she would vote for him towards Hillary Clinton.
Ms Haley served as Mr Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations from January 2017 to December 2018, the primary Indian-American to serve in a presidential cupboard.
Since leaving the Mr Trump administration in 2018, Haley has had an up-and-down relationship with the previous president.
In 2020, she inspired voters to assist his bid for a second time period.
She criticised Mr Trump after the January 6 riot, however later mentioned Mr Trump has an vital position to play within the Republican Party.
She additionally criticised him after costs had been laid over labeled paperwork he allegedly moved from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago property.
Ms Haley mentioned if the knowledge within the costs was true, it was “incredibly dangerous to our national security”.
Source: information.sky.com”