Nikki Haley doesn’t rule out Ron DeSantis as 2024 running mate

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley didn’t completely reject Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), her chief 2024 primary rival, as a potential running mate if she were to clinch the GOP presidential nomination.

“I am going to defeat Donald Trump on my own. That’s the goal that we have. If he wants to join forces with me, I welcome that,” Haley said in a joint interview on Friday with NBC News’s Dasha Burns and the Des Moines Register‘s Brianne Pfannenstiel. “But right now, we’ve got a race that we feel good about. We’ve got a surge. We’ve got momentum. We’ve had hundreds of people show up at our events. We’re doing well in Iowa. We’re doing well in New Hampshire. We’re going to keep on fighting.”

TRUMP SEEKS TO ‘WIN BIG’ IN IOWA KILL SHOT

One day before Haley’s comments, DeSantis challenged the former South Carolina governor to rule out being Trump’s running mate in his joint interview with NBC News and the Des Moines Register. The Florida governor has repeatedly and emphatically declared he wouldn’t join a presidential ticket with Trump and called for Haley to do the same. (He also called Haley a “phony” and challenged her credentials as a true conservative.)

On Friday, Haley again stated she isn’t running for vice president but did not clearly say “no” to becoming Trump’s running mate if he offered the position to her.

“I don’t play for a second. I’ve never done it in my life. I’m not doing it now,” she said. “You don’t put yourself, your family, and everything that goes into running for president to be second, and so, we are going to be first.”

Haley and DeSantis are in a bitter fight to emerge as the sole viable challenger to Trump, although time is quickly running out. The first voters will decide who they want as the GOP nominee during the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses. Trump consistently leads his rivals in national and early nominating state polling. A RealClearPolitics average shows Trump at 62.7%, Haley at 11%, and DeSantis at 10.9%.

Haley also took aim at another GOP rival in her Friday interview: former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

The two candidates are battling for a strong finish in the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary, where they have campaigned heavily. Popular Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH), a staunch Haley supporter, pressured Christie this week to consider suspending his campaign to help Haley coalesce support in the Granite State. The irascible ex-governor has refused to heed Sununu’s advice.

“I’ll never tell anyone to get out of the race. I mean, it’s personal to get into a race. It’s personal to get out of the race. That’s for him to decide,” Haley said on Friday on Christie’s 2024 bid.

But she did implicitly allude to his unsuccessful efforts to thwart Trump’s popularity in the GOP. Outside of New Hampshire, Christie is polling in the single digits, a testament to Republican voters’ dislike of Christie’s constant hammering of Trump.

“If he wants to defeat Trump, I think he can see exactly how you do that. But that’s for him to see. And that’s for him to decide,” she said. “I’m not going to tell anybody to get out of the race. I’m just going to run my own.”

“I think it’s left everybody scratching their heads saying, ‘You know, you say you want to defeat Trump, yet you might be the one person that helps him win.’ I mean, he’s got to answer that question, not me,” Haley added.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Although the former ambassador has spent considerable time in Iowa, Haley is hoping for a decent finish in the top three of the Iowa caucuses to propel her campaign heading into the New Hampshire primary.

A strong second-place finish or even an upset first place could help Haley make a stronger stand in her home state, South Carolina, which is set to hold its primary on Feb. 24. By then, the race could come down to Trump and a sole Republican challenger before Super Tuesday.