Conservatives have accused Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley of being like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, received tons of criticism from conservatives, who elected their pick, Donald Trump. As the former president leads in the 2024 polls, his supporters have slammed Haley—a former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor—one of his Republican opponents. While Trump is still the clear front-runner for the GOP nomination, Haley has gained significant ground among voters.
On January 15, Iowa Republicans will be the first to cast their votes in the 2024 primary season. As the Iowa caucuses near, conservatives have compared Haley to Clinton.
Newsweek reached out to Haley's campaign via email for comment.
Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch Trump ally, accused Haley of insulting Iowa caucus-goers like she said Clinton did.
"Nikki Haley is basically Hillary Clinton. She declared Iowa as not smart enough, not good enough, and that New Hampshire will have to correct their mistake," Greene wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday. "The Iowans I've been talking to are insulted and angry. All she has is the media because the media hates Trump!"
Greene was referring to comments made by Haley at a rally in New Hampshire on Wednesday. Haley told the crowd, "You know, Iowa starts it. You know that you correct it, and then my sweet state of South Carolina brings it home."
During Clinton's 2016 campaign, private comments she made about Iowa caucus-goers in 2012 were revealed. Clinton called caucuses "creatures of the parties' extremes" in an email sent to journalist Sidney Blumenthal, a confidant of Clinton, in January 2012. The email was released by the State Department in November 2015 as part of a judge's order to make Clinton's work-related emails public.
DeSantis War Room, the rapid response team for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is also running for the Republican nomination, shared a Washington Examiner article about Haley's recent remarks about Iowa voters and quoted the article, writing: "Nikki Haley is taking a page out of Hillary Clinton's playbook: insulting voters."
Activist and journalist Laura Loomer shared an article from her conservative website, Lommered, on X, where her colleague Charles Downs criticized Haley's perceived likeness to Clinton.
In the article, titled Nikki Haley Embraces Her Inner Hillary Clinton, Downs pointed to a 2015 video of Haley talking about decriminalizing immigrants in the U.S. at an event hosted by the international nonprofit organization The Aspen Institute. In the video, Haley said: "These people that are wanting to come here, they want to come for a better life too...we don't need to talk about them as criminals, they're not...."
Downs said in the article that Haley's comments "are almost word for word" like Clinton's comments on immigration.
During a Facebook question-and-answer session in November 2015, Clinton said she would stop using the term illegal immigrants, calling it "a poor choice of words."
Clinton added: "As I've said throughout this campaign, the people at the heart of this issue are children, parents, families, DREAMers. They have names and hopes and dreams that deserve to be respected."
Haley has cracked down on border security during her 2024 campaign, calling to "close" the border and "catch and deport" anyone who entered the U.S. illegally.
Conservative pundit Ann Coulter shared an article she published on Substack, titled Nikki or Hillary? Spot the Difference! on X on Friday.
The article included a screenshot of a recent X post from Haley, in which she wrote: "Is America ready for a female president? You bet, and I'm going to be the one to make them proud."
Haley's post was accompanied by a screenshot of a 2015 tweet by Clinton that included a poll with the question, "Are you ready for the first woman president?"
X account @ProudElephantUS reshared Haley's post from Thursday and wrote: "Nikki Haley is now officially using Hillary Clinton's campaign strategy. I will NEVER vote for this woman. You?"
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