Donald Trump officially has his first rival in the primaries for the White House: 51-year-old Nikky Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who he himself transformed into a star of the party by appointing her ambassador to the UN, has announced his descent into the field in the name of "a generational change".
Haley will give a formal speech Feb. 15 in historic Charleston, as she promised.
But she anticipated the announcement in a three and a half minute video that retraces her 'American dream' as the daughter of Indian immigrants who rose to success, summarizes her political message and attacks Biden together with the dem left, also for her culture 'woke' on racism.
No reference to the tycoon, but his intention to break with the Trump era and Trumpism is clear when he invokes "a new generation of leaders" in the gerontocracy that unites the leadership of the two parties and broadening the electoral base on concrete issues: "I Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven out of eight presidential elections, that needs to change," he warned.
In foreign policy, where you are considered a hawk, you have already warned Russia, China and Iran.
In the polls for now it's off to a bad start, with single-digit percentages.
According to the latest Reuters-Ipsos survey among registered Republican voters, Trump leads with 43%, followed with 31% by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who however has not yet announced his candidacy.
The former UN ambassador is stuck at 4%, but she boasts that she has never lost a challenge.
Furthermore, you can count on many donors and on the springboard of South Carolina, a state in which you remain popular and which will be the third stage of the Republican primaries.
The only unknown is the now almost certain descent into the field of the African American senator from South Carolina Tim Scott, who could compete with her at home.
Haley always maintained a good relationship with Trump, even after he convicted him of the assault on the Capitol (but she was against the impeachment).
She had promised not to run if the tycoon got back on track but things have changed.
So far Trump has not commented on her announcement, nor has he coined one of the abrasive nicknames he gives to her rivals.
Maybe because he doesn't consider her a threat yet and maybe he doesn't rule out offering her the ticket with him, in order to pit an (authoritative) woman against a president who already has one as deputy (Kamala Harris, also of Indian origin) and with which he will probably reappear in the coming weeks.
In any
case, it is strategically an advantage for the former president to have more candidates, to disperse the vote of his opponents.
In the starting blocks are former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his former deputy Mike Pence, who is trying to escape testimony in the investigation into the assault on the Capitol so as not to antagonize Trump's bases.
But the most dangerous potential opponent for the tycoon remains the 44-year-old DeSantis, who has just collected from the state parliament, dominated by the Grand Old Party, a series of measures to be displayed as trophies during the election campaign: among these, the expansion of his controversial
program to send migrants to the dem states, the strengthening of the powers of prosecutors against electoral violations and control over Disney Word after the criticisms of the 'Don't say gay' law.
Trump has already dubbed him 'Desanctimonious' (hypocrite) and attacked several times, even with low blows.
"Prepare the popcorn", some dem joked, alluding that there will be fun like in the cinema at the GOP primaries.
However, the tycoon is conducting a low profile campaign, remaining vulnerable to the various investigations that are tailing him: excerpts of the one on his pressure to overturn the vote in Georgia in 2020 are expected to be published this week. Meanwhile, two groups of ultra-liberal Republican donors , Americans For Prosperity (AFP), founded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, and the Club for Growth, are planning to funnel millions of dollars into the presidential campaign
to lose Trump.