(C) Florida Phoenix This story was originally published by Florida Phoenix and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Nikki Haley: The next president will be a woman. Voters are choosing between her and VP Harris. [1] ['Abraham Kenmore', 'More From Author', '- February'] Date: 2024-02-02 COLUMBIA — Former Gov. Nikki Haley continued Thursday to pitch herself as an alternative to a November matchup between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. She contends Trump cannot win against Biden, and the 81-year-old president — already the nation’s oldest — is unlikely to finish another full term. That would result in Vice President Kamala Harris ascending to the White House. “We will have a female president of the United States,” Haley told about 100 people gathered Thursday afternoon at Doc’s BBQ. After pausing for cheers, she added, “But the hard truth is it’s going to be me or Kamala Harris.” At that, the audience booed. Haley is the last major Republican candidate still challenging Trump in the primary. She placed a distant third in Iowa and — after it essentially became a two-person race — still 11 percentage points behind in New Hampshire. But she’s hoping for a good turnout in her home state’s Republican primary Feb. 24. “We got rid of 12 of the fellas” in the primary, she said. “We got one more we need to catch up to.” Haley began as she often does by touting her six years as governor of South Carolina. She told supporters they cannot complain about general election results if they don’t turn out in the primary. Get your friends and family to the polls too, she told them. Several people protesting the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza interrupted her remarks and were removed. But Haley gave her usual response that she doesn’t mind them. Her husband, who’s deployed overseas with the Army National Guard, fights for their freedom of speech too, she said. Asked by reporters how she’d respond to the war as president, Haley said the United States should re-institute sanctions on Iran and make strikes on Iranian leadership to limit their aid to proxy fighters who have killed and injured American troops. But even in her home state and near the state House district she once represented, voters say they’re still deciding. Meera Bhonsle, 27, from Lexington, said she’ll probably support the former governor, who was born in South Carolina to Indian immigrants. Noting she’s a minority woman too, she said, “obviously, that is really important, because America is a diverse country. “So, seeing a woman represented, and a minority woman at that, is incredibly important and something I think America is ready for,” she continued, adding that her family has known the Haleys for years. Bill Adams, a retired 78-year-old, said he voted for Haley when she ran for governor and appreciated her foreign policy experience as Trump’s first United Nations ambassador. “She’s very impressive,” he said. “There are any number of Republican candidates who would be qualified, but she has risen to the top.” Adams said he was 99% sure he would support Haley in the primary. Trump is well qualified, he said, and he believes the legal cases against him are “trumped up.” But he thought the former president might have trouble governing given the divided nature of the country. “I have nothing bad to say about Donald Trump,” he said. Still running, despite the gap Haley said she doesn’t have to win South Carolina to keep going. Victory in the Palmetto State, where polls show her trailing by about 30 points, involves “making sure it looks close,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere,” she said. “We have a country to save.” Haley told supporters she’s not paying attention to Trump’s ongoing legal cases. “I don’t know whether he’s innocent, whether he’s guilty,” but he is focused too much on his own issues rather than making Americans’ lives better, she said. She also pushed back on accusations she’s part of an anti-Trump movement. “I agree with a lot of his policies,” she said. “That’s the thing is that people think you have to either be pro-Trump or anti-Trump. I’m pro-America.” SC lawmakers for Trump Trump’s campaign held two news conferences Thursday to counter Haley — one outside the Statehouse and the other in Horry County, a GOP stronghold. Led by GOP lawmakers who support Trump, the press events were supposed to be about Haley’s foreign policy weaknesses. Instead, Attorney General Alan Wilson mostly criticized the Biden administration’s immigration policies, saying the president has allowed huge numbers of people to cross into and stay in the United States without authorization. “If (Biden) had just stayed in his basement and done nothing, we would be safer,” Wilson said in a jab at Biden’s lack of campaigning amid the pandemic in 2020. This story was published earlier by the South Carolina Daily Gazette, an affiliate of the nonprofit States Newsroom network, which includes the Florida Phoenix. [END] --- [1] Url: https://floridaphoenix.com/2024/02/02/nikki-haley-the-next-president-will-be-a-woman-voters-are-choosing-between-her-and-vp-harris/ Published and (C) by Florida Phoenix Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/floridaphoenix/