Nimrata Randhawa Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador and governor of South Carolina, is running for the GOP nomination for president.
Haley is the first well-known rival to officially challenge 2020 election loser Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024.
Haley was born in Bamberg, South Carolina and earned an accounting degree from Clemson University.
She joined her family’s clothing business before serving as treasurer and president of the National Association of Women Business Owners.
First elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2004, she served three terms.
In 2010, during her third term, she was elected governor of South Carolina, and she won re-election in 2014.
Haley was the first female governor of South Carolina, the youngest governor in the country and the first female governor of Asian American heritage.
In 2017, Haley became the first Indian American member of a presidential cabinet, when Trump selected her as United States ambassador to the United Nations from 2017 to 2018.
Haley had previously claimed that she would not run against her former boss but she announced her candidacy on February 14, 2023, almost three months after Trump declared his candidacy for a non-consecutive second presidential term in a speech at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been emerging as the top contender in the race even though he has not expressed any interest in being a 2024 candidate.
Haley has worked to appear relatively moderate while trying to appeal to the most extreme right-wing Republicans —which has sometimes led to a series of contradictions and reversals.
“The 2023 version of Ms. Haley is actively working against the core values that the 2016 Ms. Haley would have held to be the very foundation of her public life,” wrote Stuart Stevens, a former Republican political consultant.
During the 2016 presidential election cycle, Haley sharply criticized then-candidate Trump. “I will not stop until we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the KKK,” she said at a rally. “That is not a part of your party. That is not who we want as president.”
Trump has responded to his former acolytes challenge in a calm and measured manner, instead of with the usual insults wire which he attacked the Florida governor, DeSantis.
Three national polls released in January show Trump leads in a hypothetical 2024 Republican presidential primary, but DeSantis is firmly in second place while Haley is polling at only 3%.