Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley will skip a New Hampshire Republican primary debate unless former President Donald Trump attends.
Haley’s campaign announced her decision on Tuesday morning following the Iowa caucuses, in which she finished third. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) already confirmed his intention to attend a Thursday debate hosted by WMUR-TV and ABC News at Saint Anselm College.
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“We’ve had five great debates in this campaign,” Haley said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them. He has nowhere left to hide.
“The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden,” she said. “I look forward to it.”
Trump has skipped all of the Republican National Committee primary debates and the CNN Iowa debate. He is unlikely to attend the New Hampshire event.
DeSantis has criticized Trump for that decision but spent most of his energy on Tuesday attacking Haley.
“Nikki Haley is afraid to debate because she doesn’t want to answer the tough questions such as how she got rich off Boeing after giving them millions in taxpayer handouts as governor of South Carolina,” DeSantis wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “The reality is that she is not running for the nomination, she’s running to be Trump’s VP.”
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“I won’t snub New Hampshire voters like both Nikki Haley and Donald Trump, and plan to honor my commitments,” he added. “I look forward to debating two empty podiums in the Granite State this week.”
Haley’s move not to participate without Trump comes after she faced negative feedback for her debate performance in Iowa, in which she took on DeSantis one-on-one. It also marks her first attempt to make the primary a two-person race with Trump. She had previously been competing with DeSantis to be the strongest alternative to the former president.
