Washington: Firing a fresh salvo at US Vice President Kamala Harris, fellow Indian-American and Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has said that the prospect of her presidency should “send a chill up every American’s spine”.
In an interview to Fox News, Haley, who has called Harris “incompetent” and “unbelievably extremist”, expressed concern at the prospect of the vice president becoming leader if Democrats register a win in the 2024 presidential elections.
“My concern is we cannot have Kamala Harris as President. We can’t chance this. We have to make sure that we have a new generational leader that’s going to bring in not only Republicans, but we’re going to pull back the independents,” Haley told Fox News on Sunday.
“We’re going to bring back in the suburban women, we’re going to bring in Hispanics. We’re going to bring in the Asian community. We have to make sure we win this, because the thought of Kamala Harris being President should send a chill up every American spine.”
In the first Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee last week, the former South Carolina Governor had said that “anybody is better than Kamala Harris”, bolstering her previous stance that a vote on President Joe Biden is a vote on his 2024 running mate Harris.
Her views correspond with fellow Republican strategists, who opine that Harris is a thorn in Biden’s wrinkled paw.
Responding to Haley’s fresh attack, writer Jemele Hill said that the former UN ambassador is “racist” because she doesn’t want Harris to be the president, Fox News reported.
Haley, who says that it is time to “put a badass woman in the White House”, is far behind her former boss Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in popularity polls.
A recent Fox News poll showed that 53 per cent of likely voters preferred Trump.
Haley came fifth, far behind DeSantis and fellow Indian-American rival, Vivek Ramaswamy.
But she insists that the race is “actually just getting started”.
Meanwhile, a recent NBC News survey found that 49 per cent of respondents have a negative opinion of Harris, while 32 per cent of those surveyed have a positive opinion of the Vice President.
She received a net negative rating of -17 — the lowest net negative rating for a Vice President in the history of the poll.
Between February 14 and 20, a Berkeley Institute of Government Studies and The Los Angeles Times poll found that 59 per cent of registered voters were hesitant about Harris seeking the country’s highest office.
What was more shocking was that the majority of these voters were from California — a Democrat bastion and Harris’ home state.
But then Biden hasn’t exactly set Harris up for success, according to Bloomberg’s Francis Wilkinson.
Critics argue that Biden is running for 2024 as he does not believe Harris would have as good a chance of beating Trump.
(IANS)
