Newly announced Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley to host Marion town hall

Newly announced Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley will host a town hall at Legacy Manufacturing in Marion at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

Members of the general public still can sign up to attend the free event at https://bit.ly/41cMkp2.

Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, kicked off her 2024 White House bid last week with a rally in Charleston, S.C., and campaign stops in New Hampshire, an early GOP nominating state.

Her fellow South Carolinian Republican, Sen. Tim Scott, also is scheduled to swing through Iowa this week as he decides his political future. And former Vice President Mike Pence was in Cedar Rapids last week rallying conservative parents opposed to transgender-affirming policies in public schools like the one adopted last year by the Linn-Mar Community School District.

Haley is scheduled for a rally in Urbandale on Monday before heading to Marion on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Scott is speaking at Drake University on Wednesday, part of what aides call a national listening tour aimed at informing his plans, before addressing an annual Polk County Republican fundraiser in that evening.

Haley, 51, is the first major Republican candidate to challenge former President Donald Trump, her former boss, for the 2024 GOP nomination.

Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, a former candidate for governor in that state, has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to form a committee to run for president. Johnson also aired $192,000 worth of TV ads in the Des Moines, Sioux City, Cedar Falls and Quad Cities media markets during the Super Bowl, and announced he was opening a campaign office in Des Moines. He also attended Pence’s “parents rights” rally in Cedar Rapids last week.

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley became the first woman and person of color elected governor of South Carolina in 2010 — and the nation’s youngest state executive. She became the second governor of Indian descent, after Republican Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.

Iowa Republicans still will hold their first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses in 2024, though national Democrats have voted to strip Iowa Democrats of the early perch. Already, several GOP contenders have been testing the waters in Iowa — including Haley, who campaigned with Iowa’s Republican congressional candidates last year.

In anticipation of the visit, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart branded Haley as extreme.

"As governor of South Carolina, Haley endorsed a Republican plan to ‘end Medicare as we know it,' signed a total abortion ban, pushed for tax giveaways for corporations and the superwealthy, and refused to expand affordable health care access to hundreds of thousands of Americans," Hart said in a statement.

In announcing her bid for the White House, Haley called for generational change in Washington, D.C., congressional term limits and a mandatory mental competency test for politicians older than 75, an implied dig at President Joe Biden, who, at 80, is the oldest president in history, and a slight of Trump, 76.

“America is not past its prime,” she told a crowd of several hundred people gathered near Charleston’s visitors center. “It’s just that our politicians are past theirs.”

Haley, in her announcing her campaign for the White House, noted Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections.

“Our cause is right, but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans,” Haley said at her kickoff rally in Charleston, according to prepared remarks. “Well, that ends today. If you’re tired of losing, then put your trust in a new generation.”

AP: Things to know about Nikki Haley, GOP presidential hopeful

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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