Republican Nikki Haley: ‘If we don’t win in 2022, there is no 2024’

DAVENPORT -- Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley campaigned for U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks on Wednesday, rallying Iowa Republicans to vote in 2022 as she considers a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

“What we have to remember is if we don't win in 2022, there is no 2024,” Haley told reporters asking about her 2024 plans. “And so we are here in Iowa because, boy, y'all grow 'em strong here in Iowa and you grow up tough, and Mariannette has been a fantastic congresswoman. She has fought for all the right things.”

It’s Haley's second time visiting Davenport to campaign for Miller-Meeks, who’s facing a re-election campaign for the seat she won by six votes in 2020.

Haley, former governor of South Carolina, kept the focus on the 2022 midterms throughout her speech to roughly a hundred Republicans standing among antique cars at Dahl Old Car Home in Davenport.

Haley touched on border security, taming federal spending, promoting public support for parents to send kids to private schools and criticizing President Joe Biden’s handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

“Being a governor, she has such a wealth of knowledge to bring to what's happening at the federal level,” Miller-Meeks said.

Iowa will continue holding the influential first-in-the-nation Republican caucuses, making Iowa a key state for Republican candidates testing the waters for a presidential run. National Democrats are considering taking the Hawkeye state off its perch as first on the nominating calendar.

During this trip to Iowa, Haley is headlining a Republican GOP reception in Dubuque and is slated to attend Republican U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra's annual Family Picnic Fundraiser in Sioux Center on Thursday.

In her speech, Haley pointed to the national debt topping $30 trillion for the first time last year -- down to $28.4 trillion now -- saying more needed to be done in Washington to tame spending amid rapid inflation.

“Some things have to change,” Haley said. “And what we have watched Mariannette do is she has fought the wasteful spending. She has said when you have to borrow interest to pay your debt, that's a problem and a national security threat.

“But she also acknowledges that the way to fix the problem is to balance the budget. You do it every day, you never spend more than you make.”

During the Trump administration, most Republicans voted along party lines to pass a $1.5 trillion tax cut package, adding to the national debt.

In a nod to efforts across the country to root out “critical-race theory,” in schools and training, Haley said: “This national self-loathing has to stop.”

Haley pointed to Ukrainian efforts to battle Russia as an example of patriotism.

“This idea that America is an awful country, this idea that the people in America are oppressed. This idea that America is not what she was. Now, when I looked at the Ukrainians, I'm in awe of them,“ she said. ”The idea that the men took their women and children to safety, and went out and fought for their country. ... We used to be that country. We used to fight for what we believed in.“

Haley said her parents, who immigrated to the U.S. from India, are “offended by what's happening at the border.”

“We are a country of laws,” Haley said. “The second you stop being a country of laws, you give up everything this country is founded on.

“We need a strong America,” Haley said. “Not a nice America. A strong America that prevents wars that understand that the only way you have peace in the world is with strength.”