Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is working to build a deep bench of Republicans with national security experience as the GOP seeks to capture the congressional majority in next week’s midterm elections.
The former Trump administration official, who is considered a GOP presidential contender in 2024, said U.S. foreign policy and national defense should be priorities for Republicans as they eye committee gavels now held by Democrats.
“Democrats have made our nation the laughing stock of the world,” Mrs. Haley told The Washington Times. “We need candidates who have fought on the front lines and understand what’s at stake. When America is weak, the world is less safe.”
“Winning back Congress means a safer, more secure America,” she said.
Mrs. Haley has helped raise millions and endorsed more than 60 candidates across the country ahead of the midterms, with an eye toward building a coalition of candidates focused on American foreign policy and national security.
She is backing Republican Adam Laxalt, a former Navy judge advocate general, in the tight Nevada U.S. Senate race, touting him as a “pro-law and order, pro-veteran, pro-strong border freedom fighter.”
“Adam’s defended Nevadans on the battlefield and in the courtroom — and he’ll defend them in the United States Senate,” she said.
In New Hampshire, she is backing retired Army Gen. Don Bolduc in his bid to defeat Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, touting Mr. Bolduc’s service, his law-and-order platform and his ability to “take on the establishment in Washington.”
She has also thrown her weight behind a trio of GOP candidates — West Point graduate Wesley Hunt, former Navy cryptologist Rep. Tony Gonzales and retired Navy SEAL Morgan Luttrell — to represent Texas in the House.
Among other veterans, she is backing Air Force officers Jennifer-Ruth Green and Zach Nunn in their respective House races in Indiana and Iowa.
Mrs. Haley is a staunch critic of President Biden’s foreign policy decisions, which she says have led America into “a life-or-death struggle.”
She said Mr. Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan just months into his tenure thrust the U.S. into a “clash of civilizations” where “the bad guys think the good guys lack the will to win.”
“Islamic terrorists. Iran. Russia. Communist China. They all want to harm America,” she said last month in her address as part of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library’s “A Time for Choosing Speaker Series.” “They all want to drive freedom from the earth. And they all increasingly have the capacity and the will to attempt to do it.”
She has also called the Biden presidency “the greatest gift to America’s enemies since Jimmy Carter,” lamenting what she described as the Democrats’ march toward socialism and the party’s harboring of a sense of “self-loathing” that has led to a “loss of confidence and conviction in the American cause.”
“We’re in a fight for America’s future,” Mrs. Haley said last year in an address at The Citadel, where she became the first woman to receive the Nathan Hale Patriot Award from the school’s Republican Society. “In Washington, D.C., we have a president and a Congress who are leading the greatest nation in history toward ruin.”
Mrs. Haley’s efforts to shape Congress come amid increasing speculation that she will run in the 2024 presidential election, in which Mr. Trump is also expected to run. She has previously stated that she would sit the race out if Mr. Trump were to run in 2024.
People close to Mr. Trump say his announcement could come within two weeks.
Nonetheless, she has continued to leave her mark as the GOP plots its course.
Since leaving her post at the U.N. in 2019, Mrs. Haley has penned a memoir, set up a political action committee and continued to make her presence known in the Republican Party.
“We can’t just bash the president, his party, and all the problems they’ve created,” Mrs. Haley has said. “We have to offer solutions that will lift up all Americans. We have to prove that we can make America strong and proud again.”
• Joseph Clark can be reached at jclark@washingtontimes.com.
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