Accused of Running a ‘Basement’ Campaign, Nikki Haley Takes Questions

Nikki Haley, battling attacks from Donald J. Trump that she is too liberal and accusations from Ron DeSantis that she has been hiding from voters and reporters, hit back on Thursday, taking questions and defending her conservative credentials.

“This is the problem with the Republican Party now — they want to go and push everybody away that doesn’t fit their narrative,” she told reporters in Hollis, N.H, when asked about messaging from her opponents painting her as in the pocket of Democratic donors. “I have said it to the Republican Party over and over again — we have lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president because you keep pushing people away.”

Asked about Mr. Trump’s plans to argue that nominating her for the White House would cost Republicans all the way down the ballot, Ms. Haley told reporters that “Americans aren’t stupid.”

“The reality is, who lost the House for us? Who lost the Senate? Who lost the White House? Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Donald Trump,” she said.

The back-and-forth appeared to be a dry run for her CNN town hall Thursday night, days before the New Hampshire primary next week. It was also a rare moment for Ms. Haley on the trail.

Ms. Haley, 51, the former governor of South Carolina and a United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump, has run a tightly controlled campaign. Though she has held hundreds of events in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, she has held roughly a half-dozen news conferences since August, including “gaggles,” where the reporters following her on the trail are able to ask questions.

In recent weeks, she had stopped taking questions from voters at her events in Iowa and New Hampshire, frustrating some attendees, particularly in New