Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Wednesday defended her decision to stay in the GOP presidential race despite bruising losses in Iowa and New Hampshire and polls showing her trailing former President Donald Trump in her home state before its Feb. 24 primary.
Ms. Haley said on NBC’s “Today” that she is best positioned to take on President Biden in November, dismissing critiques from Mr. Trump and others who say she’s simply burning through donors’ cash.
“From a man who spent $50 million of his own campaign contributions on his personal court cases, where the [Republican National Committee] is broke, I’m the one hurting in resources? I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m the one that saves the Republican Party. Look at every general election poll. Look at any of them. Trump loses by five, by seven. On a good day, he’s even — margin of error. I defeat Biden by up to 17 points.”
Ms. Haley is barnstorming through South Carolina, where she served as governor from 2011 to 2017, in a long-shot bid to gain momentum against Mr. Trump.
Other GOP candidates have fallen away, making it a two-person race for the party nomination, yet a recent CBS News/YouGov poll says she is trailing Mr. Trump by 35 percentage points in her home state.
Ms. Haley has shown no signs of quitting before the South Carolina showdown. She says Mr. Trump is a diminished candidate who doesn’t have what it takes to win another election.
The former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. also took exception to Mr. Trump questioning the whereabouts of her husband, Army Maj. Michael Haley, who is deployed as a National Guardsman in Djibouti.
She said her family can take the slings and arrows, “but you mock one member of the military, you mock all members of the military.”
“Before when he did it, it was during the 2016 election, and everybody thought, ‘Oh, did he have a slip? What did that mean?’” she told NBC. “The problem now is he is not the same person he was in 2016. He is unhinged. He is more diminished than he was.”
SFA Fund Inc., a super PAC that supports Ms. Haley, released a 30-second ad highlighting Mr. Trump’s comments about Maj. Haley and his reported pattern of questioning why others gave their lives in military service.
“Donald Trump — sick, or clueless? It’s time to turn the page,” the narrator says.
Despite her dour assessment of Mr. Trump, she has pledged to support him if he becomes the GOP nominee.
She said any of the GOP candidates who ran in 2024 “would be better than Joe Biden, because everybody sees how diminished Joe Biden is,” though she took one more swipe at Mr. Trump.
“I will also tell you there is no way that the American people are going to vote for a convicted criminal,” she said. “They’re not.”