Haley Noncommittal on Previous RNC Pledge to Support GOP Nominee, Says Focused on Winning Race Against Trump

Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley meets with supporters after a campaign event in Hilton Head Island, S.C., on Feb. 1, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Former South Carolina governor and current GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley says she is focused on her ongoing campaign and hasn’t thought about the pledge she made to the Republican National Committee (RNC) to support the eventual Republican candidate.

During the early days of the presidential race, GOP candidates who participated in the televised debates were required to sign a pledge to support the winning candidate, whoever that may be.

In a March 3 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Ms. Haley said she now doesn’t feel bound by her earlier pledge, and hasn’t thought about whether she will endorse the GOP presidential candidate yet because she is still in the race and can’t allow any thoughts about losing into her mind.

“If you talk about an endorsement, you’re talking about a loss. I don’t think like that when you’re in a race. You don’t think about losing. You think about continuing to go forward,” she said.

“What I can tell you is I don’t think Donald Trump or Joe Biden should be president; I don’t think we need two candidates in their 80s,” she added.

Ms. Haley further stated she thinks that people don’t want presidential candidates who resort to insulting each other during public appearances.

“I think what people want is a new generational leader that is going back to what the American dream is, what we want for our kids, in a place that is something we can be proud of again,” she said.

Age has become a hot-button issue in the election cycle. President Joe Biden has faced increasing scrutiny over his age, 81, amid multiple verbal and physical missteps that have raised concerns over his cognitive abilities. In a recent press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters the president’s doctor and a neurologist had cleared him for duty and deemed a cognitive test unnecessary.

At the same time, Democrats have been trying to shift the conversation to former President Donald Trump’s age, who will turn 78 in June. In a Feb. 28 video posted on the social media platform Truth Social, former President Trump said Democrats have started spreading disinformation about him to distract from Joe Biden’s “mental and physical” state.

Haley Hasn’t Considered Losing as a Possibility

The Republican presidential primary began on Jan. 15 with the Iowa caucuses, followed by New Hampshire. At this stage of the race, only President Trump and Ms. Haley remain as GOP candidates after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out. Former president Trump is ahead with 244 delegates and Ms. Haley has 24. At least 1,215 delegates are needed to win the GOP nomination and run for president.

According to Ms. Haley, whatever happens, she will “make what decision I want to make” in who to endorse if she is unsuccessful in her 2024 presidential nominee bid. She made the RNC pledge but didn’t indicate in the recent NBC interview that she would honor it.

“At the time of the debate, we had to take it to, would you support the nominee and you had to, in order to get on that debate stage, you said yes. The RNC is now not the same RNC,” she said.

At the same time, Ms. Haley reiterated she is still focused on winning the 2024 GOP nomination and nothing else.

“That’s not something I’m thinking about. And I think that while y'all think about that, I’m looking at the fact that we had thousands of people in Virginia, we’re headed to North Carolina, we’re going to continue to go to Vermont and Maine and all these states to go and show people that there is a path forward,” she said.

Ms. Haley recently stated she won’t be running as a third-party “No Labels” candidate, and insisted she’s not “anti-Trump” but looking for votes from Republicans who want an alternative to the former president.