The Republican who is gearing up to take on Trump

Firebrand Nikki Haley is about to launch a campaign to be the new presidential candidate. Who is she really? Sarah Baxter reports

- Sarah Baxter

A BOLD, kick-ass woman is about to enter the US presidential race. This is how Nikki Haley, the former Republican governor of South Carolina, aims to present herself anyway. "I wear heels, but it's not a fashion statement, it's because if I see something wrong I'm gonna kick 'em every single time," she said, while serving as Donald Trump's ambassador to the United Nations in 2017.

Haley deserves applause for having the guts to be the first to take on Trump while male contenders are still cowering and plotting in the shadows. Tomorrow Haley will launch her campaign in the historic port city of Charleston, South Carolina, before heading to New Hampshire and Iowa, two early primary states where presidential candidates are forged or broken. But she faces a tough challenge to prove she is the answer to the Republican Party's problems.

Trump is salivating at the prospect of having a live "victim" to dispatch and prove his campaigning chops. He thinks he can charge Haley with flip-flopping after she criticised him for inciting the January 6 riot at the Capitol. She predicted Trump had "fallen so far" he would not run for office again, before promising not to stand against him when she realised her mistake. Another U-turn is not a good look. Justin Evans, her former political director in South Carolina, tells me: "The Nikki I knew and worked for is not the Nikki who is running today."

Yet she is not the only challenger who reckons Trump is on the ropes after his hand-picked candidates performed poorly in the mid-term elections and his 2024 campaign launch had low-energy vibes. Haley fancies her chances despite starting out at only modest single digits in the polls; well behind Ron DeSantis, the formidable governor of Florida (as yet untested on the national stage), but ahead of other serious players, such as Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state.