Why Nikki Haley has so few friends left in South Carolina politics
The stories pile up one after another, of no thanks, allies thwarted, opponents unforgiven – a portrait of a politician who climbed the ladder with speed and skill, but failed to ensure that the people who helped her would have her back when she needed it. them.
Now that politician, Nikki Haley, has returned to her home state of South Carolina and desperately needs support from high places to revive her quest for the presidency.
She doesn't like it much.
The man who had been her lieutenant governor, Henry McMaster, signed on with Donald J. Trump long ago. The House member she picked from a crowded field of South Carolina candidates to serve in the United States Senate, Tim Scott, endorsed Mr. Trump just days before the crucial New Hampshire primary. and stood behind him Tuesday night as the former president mocked Mrs. Trump. Haley's dress.
The congresswoman whose career was saved from a Trump-backed challenger in 2022 by a timely endorsement from Haley, Nancy Mace, has also sided with Mr. Trump, a man she once said should be held accountable for the riot of January 6. 2021.
“She was good on economic development, but not great on cultivating relationships,” Chip Felkel, a longtime Republican political consultant and Trump critic, said of Ms. Haley. “She forgot who helped her get here.”
In the rough and tumble of South Carolina politics, Ms. Haley's 12 years as a state representative and then as the nation's youngest governor were remarkable. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Ms. Haley repeatedly defied expectations as she took on an entrenched old guard in the Deep South. She defeated much better-known Republican politicians who ran first for Congress and then for governor, and was very successfully elected to her second term – a rise so meteoric that her campaign is selling T-shirts that read “Underestimate Me, that will be fun.' ”
Both Ms. Haley and her supporters attribute the hard feelings she left behind to jealousy, sexism and a sense that a young woman of color simply had not waited her turn. But for all the talk about South Carolina's penchant for dirty tricks, the state also appreciates the happy hand. And that wasn't Ms. Haley's style.
Campaigning in New Hampshire last week, Ms. Haley said lawmakers in South Carolina had “no love for me” because she fought to make state government more transparent and vetoed pork-barrel projects.
“The good old boys never liked her,” said State Representative Nathan Ballentine, a Republican and close friend who supports Ms. Haley. Mr. Ballentine said he was disappointed to see so many South Carolina Republicans, whom she had endorsed, supporting Mr. Trump, and especially Mr. Scott. But he wasn't surprised.
A spokeswoman for the Haley campaign, Olivia Perez-Cubas, dismissed the rush to endorse Trump as expected. Mr. Trump has “become the establishment,” Ms. Perez-Cubas said. “Nikki has always been the outsider candidate fighting the political insiders.”
There are many reasons why South Carolina's political class is falling in line: many have long supported Trump, believe he will be the nominee and worry that their voters — or Trump's allies — could punish them for straying.
Even if Ms. Haley were to receive a slew of messages of support, a comeback like the one she is now attempting would be a tall order. Statewide polls are sparse, but otaken before the Iowa caucuses showed Trump with a 29-point lead over Ms. Haley, who resigned as governor eight years ago to serve in Trump's administration. Trump won the state handily in 2016, and by a slightly larger margin in 2020.
Ms. Haley declared her outsider status in her very first campaign, recalled Representative Ralph Norman, the only Republican member of the state's congressional delegation to endorse her. He noted that her first attempt to become a state representative was a Republican primary challenge against Larry Koon, then the longest-serving lawmaker in Columbia.
“She took on a thirty-year incumbent position; he had family,” Mr. Norman said, referring to the state’s close-knit Legislature.
Mr. Koon and his supporters responded by referring to her as “Nimrata N. Randhawa,” downgrading the middle name she uses to an initial, a tactic Mr. Trump has adopted. Smear campaigns and racist flyers followed. But she won.
In the State House, Ms. Haley bucked the rules of the state's famed political club, said Tom Davis, a Republican and one of the few senators who have endorsed her.
Her campaign to require that every vote be put on the record, not in backrooms, cost her a seat on a powerful House committee and her majority position in her third term as a lawmaker, she wrote in a memoir.
As governor, she published “report cards” on how state lawmakers voted on her priorities, and actively campaigned against some who opposed her policies. She also pushed to force lawmakers to disclose their outside sources of income, although some saw that as a way to defuse a controversy over her own conduct as a lawmaker.
Some who know her suggest her “duke-up” approach when she first moved into the governor's mansion reflected in part her deep resentment over the nasty attacks on her during the campaign. By all accounts, she kept a very close inner circle.
“None of us are perfect,” Mr. Norman said, shaking his head after a Haley meeting in North Charleston Wednesday evening. 'Didn't she thank someone? Maybe. Didn't she do some things? We all make mistakes.”
But he said, “I saw that leadership when I was there with her. That's what attracted me to her as governor.”
Mick Mulvaney, White House chief of staff under Mr. Trump, who served with Ms. Haley in the State House and when she was governor, was one of those South Carolina Republicans who was not in Ms. Haley's camp and often in her crotch was full of hair.
“I always felt that she — or maybe her people, it's sometimes hard to tell — never forgave people who didn't support her for governor in 2010,” said Mr. Mulvaney, who did not endorse in the primary. . “I belong to that group.”
The only episode that has followed her involved Mark Sanford, the disgraced former governor of South Carolina, who had pushed her to run for governor before disappearing during a trip to Argentina to visit a friend. His extramarital affair had made him persona non grata in the state, but Ms. Haley repeatedly urged him privately to help finance her campaign, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.
He eventually agreed to open the coffers of Reform SC, a non-profit organization associated with him. The organization mounted a $400,000 advertising campaign to promote her candidacy.
“And then she interrupted me,” Mr. Sanford said Political magazine. “This is systematic with Nikki: she shuts down people who contributed to her success. It's almost like there's some weird psychological thing where she has to pretend it's self-made.”
Haley campaign officials say Mrs. Haley thanked him for the help. And Mr. Sanford's ex-wife, Jenny Sanford, was emphatic on this point: “When she says she thanked him, I believe her.”
In 2011, after her election as governor, Ms. Haley fired one of South Carolina's few billionaires, Darla Moore, from the board of the University of South Carolina and replaced her with a campaign staffer because of the advocacy of both Republicans and Democrats.
Mrs. Moore, who has been a generous donor to Republicans and Democrats, was also the largest benefactor to the university in its history. To ingratiate herself with the new governor, Mrs. Moore offered $5 million for a new building, as long as the state matched it. Ms. Haley refused, the press reported.
Ms. Haley acknowledged at the time that the move “may not have been good politics,” but said she wanted someone who aligned with her own views.
Mr. Trump has made the most of her isolation. A campaigner for the former president has stormed the state capital of Columbia, extending the long list of state officials and lawmakers in Mr. Trump's camp.
One political strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from Trump allies and to discuss private conversations with clients, said the message was twofold: The former president could help their political careers if they support him; if they don't, they shouldn't expect any favors.
Mr Felkel said: “There is a huge effort going on at State House to get everyone on board and let people know there is a list.”
A Trump campaign official in South Carolina, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied there was any arm-twisting and said lawmakers were simply being encouraged to ride a political wave for Trump.
On Wednesday evening, as Ms. Haley addressed a raucous crowd in North Charleston, the Trump campaign released its latest list of endorsements in South Carolina, a total of 158 names, including both senators, five of the six Republican House members, the governor, Lt. governor, attorney general, treasurer and many state legislators.
For some, putting their names on the list was probably pure politics, and not animosity toward Ms. Haley. Josh Whitley, a county commissioner in suburban Charleston and an ally of Ms. Mace, said the congressman's support for Mr. Trump was pragmatic. Mr. Trump will be the final nominee, he said. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is scouring her district, looking for a conservative to challenge her in the primaries, as revenge for her role in ousting him. She couldn't afford for Trump to work against her too.
Ms Mace would not confirm that reason. She simply said, “South Carolina loves Nikki Haley, but they love Donald Trump.”
Other missed or late expressions of support from her former allies stand out.
Mark H. Smith, a Berkeley County state representative and executive director of a funeral home in Charleston, served on Ms. Haley's “grassroots steering committee” for her re-election in 2014. He went to high school and junior prom with Ms. Haley. He spoke fondly of their childhood togetherbiking through the small town where she grew up, Bamberg, SC
He is one of 158 names on Trump's endorsement list.
Jasmine Ulloa reporting contributed. Kitty Bennett And Susan Beachy research contributed.