‘I don’t think Trump is going to be the nominee’: Nikki Haley

Washington, Sep 4 (PTI) With her campaign gaining momentum after last month’s Republican primary debate, Indian American presidential candidate Nikki Haley has said former US president Donald Trump would not be the party’s nominee for the 2024 presidential elections.

The latest opinion poll released by The Wall Street Journal revealed that Haley, 51, was in the third spot in terms of popularity rating after Trump and Ron DeSantis. Her fellow Indian American candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was in the fourth spot.

“I don’t think President Trump’s going to be the nominee. I think it’s going to be me. But I will tell you that any Republican is better than what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are doing,” Haley told CBS News in an interview on Sunday.

According to RealClearPolitics which monitors all the major national polls, Trump tops the list of average of all such polls with 53.6 per cent followed by DeSantis (13 per cent), Ramaswamy (7.1 per cent) and Haley (6 per cent).

Haley, the former US ambassador to the UN, said that a vote for President Biden is a vote for Vice President Harris.

“He is innocent until proven guilty. But you are implying that the American people are not smart. The American people are not going to vote for a convicted criminal. The American people are going to vote for someone who can win a general election. I have faith in the American people,” she said in response to a question.

“They know what they need to do. So I think that, yes, I will support the Republican nominee always. I will make sure that that we’re going to pick someone that’s going to beat a President Kamala Harris, because we can’t have a President Kamala Harris, or we’ll never get our country back,” she said.

Haley also said she was in favour of term-limit for US lawmakers and elected representatives.

“I am completely for term limits. I`m completely for mental competency tests for anyone over the age of 75. And I`m not saying that to be disrespectful,” she said.

“Here, you have Mitch McConnell, who`s done great service to the country. You have Dianne Feinstein, who had a great career. You`ve got Nancy Pelosi, who`s been there a long time. At what point do they get it`s time to leave? They need to let a younger generation take over,” she said.

“We want to go and start working for our kids to make sure we have a strong national security, to make sure we have a stronger economic policy, to make sure that America is safe. We can`t do that if these individuals refuse to give up power. This is not just a Republican or Democrat problem.

“This is a congressional problem. And they`ve got to know when to leave. It is time to pass this down to a new generation of conservative leaders that want to take our country to a better place,” Haley said.