Nikki Haley has spent 20 years navigating Republican Party factions. Trump may make that impossible

When Nikki Haley was a South Carolina legislator, she backed budgets boosted by federal aid. Running for governor, she criticized a “bailout culture” and dependence on Washington.

She once called the Confederate battle flag a heritage symbol and sidestepped calls to remove it from statehouse grounds. After a racist massacre in Charleston, Haley moved to take it down.

When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, she opposed him before joining his administration as U.N. ambassador. Now, Haley is running against Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination saying he is an agent of chaos.

For almost 20 years, Haley has worked to navigate Republicans’ rightward march, trying to cultivate both the GOP establishment and the firebrand conservative base that gave rise to Trump. She is seen as either a pragmatic unifier or a finger-to-the-wind politician, and as she seeks the Republican nomination, her political pivots have become her opponents’ most persistent line of attack.

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«Other news» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-show-loadmore=«true» data-gtm-modulestyle=«List B»> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Other news </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Trump mocks Nikki Haley’s first name. It’s his latest example of attacking rivals based on race<use xlink:href="#play-icon" xmlns:xlink=«http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink»> </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> South Carolina roads chief Christy Hall retires with praise for billions in highway improvements </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> DeSantis shifts his campaign away from New Hampshire days before the state’s