Nikki Haley
Republican candidate
- Birth date: Jan. 20, 1972 (age 52)
- Birthplace: Bamberg, S.C.
- Party: Republican
- Education: Clemson University (B.A.)
- Spouse: Michael Haley
- Former offices: U.N. ambassador; South Carolina governor; South Carolina state representative
The former Trump U.N. ambassador is the first prominent woman of color to seek the GOP nod for the presidency. The daughter of Indian immigrants who became governor of South Carolina, a key primary state, Haley has rejected being defined by identity politics — whether having to do with her ethnicity or gender — calling that approach “woke self-loathing.” She denies the existence of a glass ceiling despite running to put a “badass woman” in the White House. She wants to talk in a “loving” way about abortion rights, saying she can build a “consensus” on the explosive issue (but is notably light on specifics). Haley compared finding common ground on abortion to negotiations to remove the Confederate flag from South Carolina State House grounds following a 2015 mass shooting at a historic African American church in Charleston. She also wants politicians over 75 years old to take a mental competency test and suggests President Biden won’t make it through a second term, at the end of which he would be 86.
This page is part of a series on 2024 presidential candidates.
Illustrations by Ben Kirchner for The Washington Post
Series produced by Matthew Callahan, Jake Crump, Megan Griffith-Greene, Anne Kenderdine, Agnes Lee, Candace Mitchell, Christine Nguyen, Tyler Remmel, Erik Reyna, Virginia Singarayar, Ashlyn Still, Kevin Uhrmacher, Audrey Valbuena, Rachel Van Dongen and Madison Walls
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