Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley has continued to attack Donald Trump in the wake of her defeat in the New Hampshire primary last week, concentrating her campaigning efforts on her native South Carolina and telling the front-runner it is time to stop to “hiding” behind a teleprompter and debate her.
“Man up, Donald!” Ms Haley told a rally crowd in Conway on Sunday, also dispatching a pro-Trump heckler by suggesting that he represented the same empty “disruption” as his political idol.
While Mr Trump has been preoccupied by his legal troubles since his win in New Hampshire – which has seen him ordered to pay $83.3m in defamation compensation to E Jean Carroll, whom he was found liable for having sexualy assaulted – his rival has fought back aggressively, attempting to pitch herself as a Tea Party original in an explicit appeal to Mr Trump’s hard-right base.
“Trump says I’m not conservative. That makes me laugh,” she wrote on X last week.
“I’m a Tea Party governor. I took on the establishment in South Carolina. That’s why they didn’t like me very much. But I don’t care if the swamp likes me. I’m fighting for YOU.”