Donald Trump could soon see his supremacy in the Republican nomination race under threat as a swathe of new candidates is forecast to follow Nikki Haley’s imminent announcement. The former South Carolina Governor is expected to confirm she will run against her former boss at a “special” event on Wednesday. Republican strategist Jim Merrill suggested the move will open the floodgates for a swathe of new candidates to throw their hats in the ring against Trump.
Merrill said: “I expect that we’ll see other candidates get in soon, over the next few months, and that we’ll have a robust primary field.”
He noted Haley waited to make her announcement but is now taking the opportunity to set herself apart from other potential challengers for the Republican nomination.
Haley only recently changed her tune about her intentions after previously claiming she would not run against her former employee as she served as US Ambassador to the UN through Trump’s mandate.
Last month she insisted the GOP is now in need of “new leadership”, and last week sent supporters an invitation to attend a “special announcement” event in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 15.
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Merrill told Fox News: “While there’s clearly been some reluctance to get in early, she’s setting herself apart and creating an opportunity for herself to define herself early, to establish her campaign.”
Mike Pence, also tipped to put his name up for the nomination, will be in Iowa as Haley makes her announcement.
It will be the latest in a series of stops Pence made in the early-voting state over the past two years. He has also repeatedly attended events in South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire.
Haley would be the first prominent Republican to openly challenge Donald Trump but former Cranston, PA mayor Steve Laffey has already confirmed he plans to run against the former President.
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David McIntosh, the president of the influential Club For Growth group, said the group has invited a half dozen potential Republican candidates to its donor summit in Florida next month, but Trump is not among them.
McIntosh said: “We think it would be great for our members to hear them, see what they have to say, where they want to lead the country.”
And the Americans For Prosperity group, which is funded by billionaire businessman Charles Koch and formerly his brother David, put out a memo announcing to supporters they are ready to back an alternative candidate to Trump in the run-up to 2024.
Trump’s campaign pointed to messages on his Truth Social network in which he called McIntosh’s organization the “Club For NO Growth.”
He later posted an additional message calling the group “an assemblage of political misfits, globalists, and losers.”
