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Nikki Haley came under immediate attack from her Republican rivals in the party’s primary debate in Alabama on Wednesday, as Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy took turns to criticise her support from Wall Street funding and question her conservative credentials.
DeSantis, facing questions about his faltering campaign, immediately turned his focus on Haley, who has overtaken him in some polls to be second in the race behind frontrunner Donald Trump.
The Florida governor tried to discredit the polls — saying he was “sick” of them — and turn Haley’s momentum among major donors into a negative. Haley has recently received praise from Democrat Jamie Dimon, the JPMorgan Chase chief executive, and Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn founder and prominent Democratic donor. She also met BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who led the effort to use environmental, social and governance factors in investment decisions.
“Nikki will cave to those big donors when it counts,” said DeSantis.
“She’s been very weak on China,” he said later. “These Wall Street donors, they make money in China. They’re not going to let her be tough on China.”
Ramaswamy also piled on, attacking Haley for serving on the board of Boeing, and calling her a stooge for corporations and the rich.
Haley said her competitors wished they were attracting the same support — and noted that she left Boeing after the company received a “bailout” from the federal government during the coronavirus pandemic.
“They’re just jealous,” said Haley. “I love all the attention, fellas,” she added later. “Thank you for that.”
Haley, DeSantis and biotech entrepreneur Ramaswamy were joined on the stage by former New Jersey governor Chris Christie — the only four candidates, aside from Trump, to meet the Republican National Committee’s heightened polling and donor thresholds.
Trump skipped the event, hosted by NewsNation at the University of Alabama, in a sign of strength.
Wednesday’s debate grew heated as the topic turned to foreign policy — a contentious issue in the party, whose senators earlier in the day sank a bill to provide more US funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Ramaswamy attacked Haley for not being able to name provinces in eastern Ukraine to which he claimed she would be willing to send US troops.
After a blistering attack, Christie took to Haley’s defence, saying Ramaswamy would be voted “as the most obnoxious blowhard in America”.
“This is a smart, accomplished woman,” said Christie. “You should stop insulting her . . . All he knows how to do is insult good people who have committed their lives to public service.”
Ramaswamy replied that Christie should leave the stage and “enjoy a nice meal”.
Haley was looking to capitalise on the momentum behind her bid for the White House. She is polling second behind Trump in the early-voting states of New Hampshire and her home state of South Carolina — and battling DeSantis for second in Iowa, where the Florida governor has pinned his hopes.
The debate was also another opportunity for DeSantis to revive his flailing campaign. He was once seen as the Republican best positioned to challenge Trump for the party’s presidential nomination, especially cruising to re-election as Florida governor by a near 20-point margin in last year’s midterms.
But DeSantis’s presidential bid has struggled since he launched it in May of this year, and Never Back Down, the super Pac supporting his push for the White House, has been plagued by infighting and dysfunction in recent weeks. Haley and her supporters are now outspending DeSantis on ads despite a severe fundraising disadvantage earlier this year, according to AdImpact data.
DeSantis campaign officials have dismissed the churn at the super Pac — which has seen the departure of two chief executives and a chair in the past month — and insisted the Florida governor remains focused on his efforts to win over voters.
DeSantis has centred his campaigning largely on Iowa, where evangelical Christian voters make up a large share of the Republican primary electorate. He has picked up the endorsement of Kim Reynolds, the state’s popular Republican governor, and influential Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, in recent weeks.