By Meg Kinnard -
The Associated Press
Republican Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, is getting closer to making her candidacy for the 2024 presidential race official.
Her supporters received an invitation by email Wednesday to a ceremony scheduled for February 15 in Charleston, where Haley plans to announce her campaign, according to a person familiar with the plans who is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The news was first published in The Post and Courier, of Charleston.
Haley, 51, was the governor of South Carolina for six years before working as President Donald Trump's ambassador to the United Nations.
When she makes her entry into the race official,
she will be the first candidate to challenge her former boss
, who is currently the only Republican to have made official her intention to win the White House in 2024.
Nikki Haley in a file photo of the annual meeting of leaders of the Republican Jewish Coalition on November 19, 2022 in Las Vegas. John Locher / AP
Trump was in South Carolina on Saturday to kick off his presidential campaign, along with Governor Henry McMaster — who was Haley's lieutenant governor — and other Republican members who are part of his team of assistants in this state.
During the Trump Administration, Haley fell out with other White House officials, which bolstered her own public image.
Her departure in 2018 fueled speculation that she could challenge Trump in 2020
, or replace Vice President Mike Pence on the ticket, but none of that happened.
[Trump suffers collection problems for his electoral campaign after the bad results in the 2022 elections]
Instead, he returned to South Carolina, where he bought a house on Kiawah Island, joined the board of directors of aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co., and gave multiple lectures, earning as much as $200,000.
In addition, he wrote two books, something that many politicians who aspire to the White House tend to do.
Following the storming of the Capitol on January 6, Haley initially questioned Trump's political future, but said she would not challenge him in 2024.
In 2021, Haley told The Associated Press that
she would not run "if President Trump ran," but has since changed course
, becoming more active through her nonprofit
Stand for America
and his political action committee and endorsing dozens of candidates in the 2022 midterm elections.
Trump begins to warm up the engines of his campaign for the 2024 presidential elections
Jan 31, 202301:56
Late last year, during a visit to Clemson University, Haley told an audience that she would "take advantage of the holidays" to consider her candidacy.
When recently asked why he was considering a possible candidacy despite his 2021 comments, Haley told Fox News that "a lot has changed," referring, among other things, to the country's economic problems.
He went on to say that he felt he
could be part of the "new generational shift
," an indirect reference to the advanced age of Trump, who is 76.
[Trump begins his campaign in New Hampshire and South Carolina: "We are on the brink of World War III"]
Trump told WIS-TV Saturday in South Carolina that Haley has called him multiple times to ask his opinion.
Trump reminded her of her promise not to challenge him in an election, but assured that she would not stop him.
"She said she would never run against me because I was the best president, but
people change their minds and change what's in their hearts
," Trump said.
"So I told him: if your heart tells you to do it, you have to do it."
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