What do I need to know about Nikki Haley?

[mellongoose]

Apologies if this has been done. I am not an on US politics at all. I've been loosely following the Republican primaries via BBCSounds' Americast or by reading a few bit in the papers.

For the sake of western democracy we cannot go on without a properly functioning Whitehouse. We need strong US, properly allied with its partners.

The current choice between Trump and Biden seems ridiculous to me. Therefore I find myself supporting other candidates…any other candidates!!

Nikki Haley, then. Would she make a good president? Is she a moderate?

Also, for the sake of balance, I’ll say I’m not a fan of Kamala Harris (and I know she would probably have to be the Democrats’ replacement) but what would Blinken be like? He seems to have been pretty good since October 7th in the ME.

Any US political experts want to tell me where I’m going wrong?!

[mellongoose]

Weird text bolding 🤷‍♀️

[Bromptotoo]

If you're going to have a Republican she's better than Trump. However, given the current situation in the Primaries, it's by no means clear how, even if Trump were totally out of the picture, she's got a route to the nomination.

[MrsBennetsPoorNerves]

As things stand, it doesn't look like you're going to need to know much about her at all. Unless she decides to go up against both Trump and Biden as an independent.

It certainly seems wildly unlikely now that she will get the Republican nomination.

[InTheRainOnATrain]

She lost to Trump in her home state. You don’t need to know anything further, it’s basically irrelevant.

[WinterMorn]

It seems she is holding on in case any of the Orange Ogre’s multiple lawsuits come good and he can no longer be seen as a credible runner.

[mellongoose]

@WinterMorn

It seems she is holding on in case any of the Orange Ogre’s multiple lawsuits come good and he can no longer be seen as a credible runner.

Exactly this. It's still possible that neither Trump nor Biden will run.

[TizerorFizz]

It’s more interesting to look at why such terrible candidates are put in front of the electorate! The emergence of creditable candidates is clearly flawed. Bumbling old man vs raging lunatic. Apologies to older folk and lunatics but the USA doesn’t need either of these two as President.

[MsAmerica]

I don't know a whole lot about Nikki, as I'm a Democrat, and she's a Republican. I can say this: No, she's not a moderate, but almost anyone can seem like a moderate in comparison with the Hitler-wannabe Trump. She has some basic competence, but most of her basic policies/ideas are unpleasant.

There is no way she can become president via any normal route, but I think she has a few possible reasons for staying in the race, and one is probably that in the event that Trump's criminality becomes so unbearable and indisputable even to Republicans, she'll be there to step in.

The solution for Dems is to replace Kamala Harris, despite Biden's past obligations - and I don't see why no one but me understands this. Blinken would be a good vice-present, but my heart belongs to Adam Schiff at the moment.

[Lizzieregina]

Nikki Haley would certainly be more palatable than Trump, but I definitely wouldn’t vote for her. @MsAmerica gave a good analysis.

At this point I don’t see any scenario where I’d ever vote for a Republican. In general they don’t align with my world view, so even though I definitely wouldn’t choose Kamala Harris if we had a Democratic primary competition, I’d still vote for her if for some reason she ended up being the candidate.