Haley would become the first woman and the first Asian American to be the GOP nominee, if she won the nomination.

In her official 2024 presidential campaign kickoff speech on Wednesday, Nikki Haley made clear that she’s not scared to admit she’s an underdog. 

“When I ran against the longest-serving legislator in the state, no one said I had a shot, but together we won,” Haley told an energetic crowd during her kickoff event in Charleston, S.C. “When I ran for governor, people said, ‘Nikki who?’ But together, we won.”

“When President Trump nominated me for ambassador to the United Nations, people said I didn’t have the experience. Then I went to work,” she said. Haley concluded: “I’ve been underestimated before. That’s always fun! And I’ve been shaking up the status quo my entire life.”

In a hypothetical nine-candidate field, Haley notches 5 percent support — up from just 1 percent in January, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted February 2–6. In a hypothetical head-to-head against Trump, she loses 54 percent to 27 percent, the poll found.

More in 2024

• Must We Lose to Joe Biden a Third Time?

• Generation X Takes On the Gerontocracy

• Nikki Haley Announces Run for President; First Republican to Take on Trump

Forty-eight percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters approve Haley’s decision to run. Twenty-two percent said they disapprove, while 30 percent said they are unsure.

Former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party Katon Dawson highlighted Haley’s comfort with being an underdog in remarks at the kickoff event. He noted that she defeated a 30-year incumbent to win election to the South Carolina house of representatives in 2004 and that she was underestimated again when she ran for governor and started out in last place.

“When you underestimate Nikki Haley you’re making a mistake, and when she tells you something you might better believe it,” Dawson said.

Despite Haley’s sitting well behind Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis in the polls, NR’s Jim Geraghty argues that a “good and serious Republican Party would give Haley real consideration as a potential nominee, noting that her depth and breadth of experience and combination of indisputable toughness and charisma on the stump represent a rare combination of strengths in a potential president who is only 51 years old.”

Haley, who is the first Republican to join the race against Trump, would become the first woman and the first Asian American to be the GOP nominee, if she won the nomination.

She became the country’s first female Asian-American governor when she was elected to lead South Carolina in 2010. When she left the governor’s mansion to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2017, she became the first Indian American to serve in the Cabinet.

“We’re ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past and we are more than ready for a new generation to lead us into the future,” said 51-year-old Haley. By contrast, Trump is 76 and Biden, who has not formally announced a bid but has expressed plans to run, is 80, and the oldest person ever to serve as president.

Haley added: “Today our enemies think that the American era has passed. They’re wrong. America is not past our prime, it’s just that our politicians are past theirs.” 

Haley has been strong in her criticism of Biden, saying Wednesday that America is “falling behind” and “nobody embodies that failure more than Joe Biden.” But it is less clear how willing she will be to launch attacks against her former boss. As NR’s editors noted this week, Haley’s campaign means she will have to answer for her “constantly shifting posture toward Trump.”

The most dramatic demonstration of this came after the January 6 Capitol riot. Initially, when it seemed as if Republicans were abandoning the outgoing president, she said that Trump “will be judged harshly by history.” But weeks later, it became clear that Republican voters were sticking by Trump as Democrats pursued a second impeachment. Haley appeared on Laura Ingraham’s show and sang a different tune. “They beat him up before he got into office,” she said. “They’re beating him up after he leaves office. I mean, at some point — I mean, give the man a break.”

Haley’s bid comes after she once said, “I would never run against my president — he [Trump] was a great president.”

Asked about her change in position, Haley said last month that “a lot has changed,” noting the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, skyrocketing inflation, and “drugs infesting all of our states.”

“When you’re looking at the future of America, I think it’s time for new generational change,” Haley said at the time. “I don’t think you need to be 80 years old to go be a leader in D.C.”

Trump said Haley had called him last month to discuss the prospect of running. He told her, “Go by your heart if you want to run.”

He noted Haley’s previous comment about never running against him, but he concluded that she “should do it.”

Meanwhile, Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) told CNN he is not running for president in 2024 and instead hopes to run for reelection. He responded to Haley’s campaign announcement by saying, “I wish her well, I’m sure there will be many others.” 

And on the topic of others: Sources close to South Carolina senator Tim Scott reportedly told the Wall Street Journal he is taking steps to run for president. Scott is testing a message of unity and optimism among voters in key early states. He is slated to speak in South Carolina at a county GOP dinner celebrating Black History Month on Thursday before he heads to Iowa later this month.

Around NR

• Rich Lowry offers a formula for avoiding another Republican loss to Joe Biden:

Dodging the bullet on another Trump nomination, assuming the party can do it, is just the start. It needs to project a seriousness of purpose and a commitment to competent governance. That doesn’t mean that it should be fainthearted and compromising — indeed, the opposite — but it needs to realize that its target audience is wider than the base and that the often-ridiculous, usually dishonest Joe Biden is not a pushover.

• The attacks from Trump are coming and Ron DeSantis had better be prepared, writes Philip Klein. Trump is set to attack DeSantis for his previous support of Paul Ryan–style proposals to overhaul entitlements and even conservative alternatives that went further. 

Trump attacking DeSantis on this issue would likely serve several purposes. One, it would help him create suspicions among older voters who constitute a large segment of the Republican-primary electorate, as well as those who like to believe the idea that foreign aid and fraud are what’s really driving our $31 trillion debt. Two, it would help raise doubts about DeSantis’s electability, which right now is one of the best assets the governor has in a race against Trump. Three, since the media would agree with Trump on this issue, they would amplify all of his attacks in a way that they have not with his other barrages against DeSantis to this point.

• Fred Bauer suggests that DeSantis could avoid the entitlements trap by pivoting on the issue, as Trump himself once did: 

It’s probably worth remembering that Donald Trump himself once supported raising the retirement age to 70 and privatizing Social Security. . . . These positions did not blow back on Trump during the 2016 primary or the general election.

• Former vice president Mike Pence is preparing to challenge a grand jury subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith relating to Trump’s alleged election interference. Ari Blaff has more on that here.

• Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo insisted to The Hill that he still has not made a decision on whether to run for president but offered an idea of how he would distinguish himself from his former boss if he were to run:

“I approached my public service in a way that’s different from his. I try my best to use language that reflects the greatness of our country. I think that’s important.”