Nikki Haley’s presidential run: Take predictions with a pinch of salt

The day after America’s most prominent Indian-American politician, Nikki Haley, announced her run for the US presidency at a rally packed with enthusiastic supporters, the New York Times came out with a headline free of doubt about her chances.

“Nikki Haley Will Not Be the Next President’: Our Columnists Weigh In.”

That brought back memories of the summer of 2015, when Donald Trump opened his campaign for the presidency and virtually the entire American commentariat, as political pundits, pollsters and prognosticators are known, came to a quick and categorical conclusion: There is no way Trump can win.

One of the prognosticators, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, wrote that “I’m so certain Trump won’t win the (Republican) nomination that I’ll eat my words if he does. Literally: the day Trump clinches the nomination I will eat the page on this is written.” To his credit, he did.

Haley’s entry into the race, the first Republican to challenge Trump, who announced his campaign three months ago, has triggered a flood of analyses of the former South Carolina governor’s chances of winning the Republican Party primary elections. They feature a series of televised debates between next February and June and decide who will be the party’s nominee.

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Under its categorical “will not be” headline, the New York Times ran reflections by nine of its best-known pundits, most of whom thought Haley’s candidacy should not be taken seriously. Except for Bret Stephens, a conservative, who addressed the question of likeability, which played a major role in Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections.

Talking of the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, who is currently rated as popular as Trump in internal polls, Stephens said “It’s said of Ron DeSantis that the closer you get to him, the less you like him. Haley is the opposite.”

She is often described as charismatic, outgoing, and of a sunny disposition that makes her an excellent retail politician. “She can light up a room of Republicans,” said an assessment of her prospects by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which also termed her “relentlessly upbeat.”

That showed, according to attendants, when she recently addressed a meeting of auto dealers, the kind of audience a Republican politician needs to court, and received thunderous standing ovations. 

Charisma and likeability are not qualities often mentioned for a slew of Republicans – so far at least a dozen – who are considering entering the race but have yet to declare. They include Trump’s former Vice President, Mike Pence, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

 How much does personality and charisma matter in winning party nominations and eventually the most powerful job in the land?  In my view, a lot. The televised debates watched by millions of voters blend political arguments, oratorical skills and body postures not unlike the reality shows so beloved by American audiences.

WATCH | Indian-American Nikki Haley kicks-off U.S. Presidential Campaign for 2024

Trump excelled in the debates, using the skills he acquired when he hosted and co-produced a popular television reality show, The Apprentice, from 2004 to 2015. It turned him into a household name.    

Likeability and sunny disposition apart, Haley brings a wide range of strengths and accomplishments to the table, plus a life story that ticks off all the right boxes for many Americans. She was born in a small town in South Carolina to Indian parents from Punjab and joined her family’s clothing business after earning an accounting degree.

Her political career ranged from three terms in the South Carolina House of Representatives to election in 2014 as the first female governor of South Carolina and the youngest governor in the country to joining the Trump cabinet in 2017 as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. 

She won praise from UN colleagues for being a quick learner and her surprise resignation at the end of 2018 sparked a frenzy of speculation partly because she left on amicable terms unlike other senior members of the Trump administration who became targets of nasty tweets from the president.

Haley joined the board of Boeing but resigned after less than a year because she opposed the company’s request for a $60 billion bailout to help the aircraft manufacturer cope with the coronavirus crisis. She described her decision as “a matter of philosophical principle.”

In her brief announcement speech, Haley pointed out that the Republican Party had lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, having failed to win the confidence of the majority of Americans. “Well, that ends today. If you are tired of losing, then put your trust in a new generation.”

To stress what she sees as the need for generational change in US politics, not only the Republican Party, the 51-year-old newly baked candidate called for term limits as well as regular “mental competency tests” for politicians over the age of 75. This was aimed at both Trump, who is 76, and President Joe Biden, who is 80.

Not to mention 30 members of the House of Representatives and 16 Senators. The average age of Americans is 38.5 years and some polls suggest that there is broad support for younger leadership. 

“America is not past our prime,” said Haley, "it’s just that our politicians are past theirs.” However, the flaw in stressing her relative youth and vitality is that Ron DeSantis, who is expected to enter the race closer to the beginning of the primaries, is even younger: 44. 

In challenging her former boss, Haley broke a promise not to run if Trump did. She has yet to explain what changed her mind but at least one of her former colleagues has spelt out in public what many suspect. “I think Nikki’s really running for vice president,” Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, said in a television interview.

So is her idea to do so well in the primaries that she will be the logical choice of running mate for whoever is chosen as the nominee if it’s not her? 

It’s almost a year to the start of the primaries, an eternity in America’s volatile politics, and those in the commentariat with firm predictions would do well remembering what happened in 2015. 

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.) 

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