‘She’s polling at 1%’: Trump belittles his new rival Nikki Haley
Ryan King
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Former President Donald Trump broke his silence on his first major GOP foe, Nikki Haley, launching her campaign, needling her over her lackluster polling numbers and welcoming her into the race.
“Nikki Haley had a hard time making the decision to run for President because she very publicly stated that she ‘would never run against the President,'” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “I told Nikki to follow her heart, not her ambition or belief. Who knows, stranger things have happened. She’s polling at 1%, not a bad start!!!”
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Haley, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, announced her campaign Tuesday in a video and held an event in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday to debut her 2024 bid.
In a recent Monmouth University poll, Haley trailed Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, locking down a meager 1% support in the GOP primary. She is also lagging behind both Trump and Desantis in the latest RealClearPolitics polling aggregate.
Left unmentioned by name in her launch video was Trump, the only other major GOP contender in the race, though Haley did appear to take a veiled swipe at him over his age. Despite his penchant for brutally knocking on his political foes, Trump welcomed the fresh competition with biting sarcasm.
“The more the merrier … I’m glad she’s running,” he told Fox News. “I want her to follow her heart — even though she made a commitment that she would never run against who she called the greatest president of her lifetime.”
“She should do what she wants to do and not be bound by the fact that she said she would never do it,” he added.
Trump’s remarks alluded to a clip he shared on his Truth Social platform in the past in which Haley said she would back Trump in 2024 if he decided to run. His campaign blasted out an email dusting off a litany of criticisms of her, questioning her conservative bona fides.
“I would not run if President Trump ran. And I would talk to him about it. That is something that we’ll have a conversation about at some point if that decision is something that has to be made,” Haley told a reporter in the clip from 2021.
When asked about the state of his campaign, Trump told Fox News that it was “going really well” and that he is “leading in every poll by a lot.” Trump has done few major rallies since debuting his campaign last November. Meanwhile, DeSantis has consistently polled as his top foe, though he has been mum about his 2024 plans.
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Haley is set to stump in New Hampshire and Iowa for a series of town hall-style events later this week. Part of her pitch during the launch was a call for Republicans to put their trust in a “new generation” of leadership.
“Politics is a strange bedfellow,” Trump added to Fox News. “Most of them would be nothing without me, but I want them to do what they want to do. They will tell you we had the most successful presidency, perhaps, ever.”