Nikki Haley kicks off 2024 presidential campaign. What to know about her rise in the GOP.

Former South Carolina governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is running for President and is the first Republican candidate to go up against her former boss, former President Donald Trump. In an announcement video posted on Twitter early Tuesday, Haley characterized herself as a contender who would not only represent a "new generation" of GOP policymakers but also as someone who could win the popular vote.

Republican candidates have lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections.

A daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley was born Nimrata Kaur Randhawa in the industrial town of Bamberg, South Carolina. So far, she is the first female and non-white candidate to join the presidential race.

Only weeks after Trump led an intimate, small-scale campaign event in the Statehouse in Columbia, Haley is kickstarting her first event as a candidate in Charleston Wednesday where hundreds are expected to arrive to support her.

Here's a closer look at what we know about Haley, her SC roots, her political positions and her career:

Nikki Haley's early life in Bamberg

Nimrata "Nikki" Kaur Randhawa was born Jan. 20, 1972, in Bamberg. Her father, Ajit Singh Randhawa, was a professor at Voorhees College, a historically Black college, and her mother, Raj Kaur Randhawa, who held a law degree from India, taught in Bamberg's public school system.

The Randhawas moved to Bamberg from Canada after Haley's father completed his PhD. Her mother eventually started a successful foreign goods store called "Exotica."

Haley worked as a bookkeeper, starting at age 13, in her mother's retail shop.

The family eventually moved to Orangeburg, and Haley transitioned from the public school system to the Orangeburg Preparatory School for high school. She graduated in 1989 and went to Clemson University for a degree in accounting, where she met her husband, Michael Haley. She graduated from Clemson University in 1994. Haley would work at her family business after graduating and also worked for a Charlotte-based waste management company. In 1996, she married Michael Haley. They have two children, Rena and Nalin. After marrying her husband, who was part of the National Guard stationed in Afghanistan in 2012, she converted to Christianity and is a member of the Methodist denomination.

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Nikki Haley: An underdog in the Statehouse

Haley was in her early thirties when she beat longtime GOP lawmaker, Larry Koon, in 2004. Koon was then the longest-serving lawmaker in the Statehouse. She represented House District 87 in Lexington County. For much of her career as a legislator, Haley ran on a small business owner, lower taxes and small government platform.

Haley consistently pursued legislation that would lower taxes for small business owners, arguing that if the state helped grow a small business owner's wealth, they would stay in South Carolina and invest their profits back into the state.

Haley also introduced legislation that led to the display of roll call votes for transparency purposes. Her tenure lasted for three terms in the House chamber.

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Nikki Haley became South Carolina's first female and first Asian governor

When Haley ran for governor in 2010, she beat Democratic Candidate Vincent Sheheen in a close race. Back then, Haley was endorsed by her predecessor Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin, which gave her the name recognition she needed to elevate her profile.

Haley would soon become a formidable force in regional politics and was known as an uncompromising politician. She is credited with bringing major manufacturing companies such as Boeing (North Charleston) and BMW (Greer) to South Carolina.

In 2012, Haley picked Sen. Tim Scott as the replacement for outgoing senator Jim DeMint. She said she based her decision on increasing racial representation. Scott is rumored to be vying for a presidential run, as well. Scott will travel to Iowa Feb. 22.

During her re-election in 2014, Haley beat Sheheen again by over 14 percentage points.

In 2015, Haley signed a bill to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds after white supremacist Dylann Roof walked into Charleston's Mother Emanuel Church and killed nine Black churchgoers, including late state Sen. Clementa Pinckney.

Haley gave the 2016 rebuttal to former President Barack Obama's State of the Union.

"Our state was struck with shock, pain, and fear. But our people would not allow hate to win," Haley said in her 2016 speech. "We didn’t have violence, we had vigils. We didn’t have riots, we had hugs. We didn’t turn against each other’s race or religion. We turned toward God, and to the values that have long made our country the freest and greatest in the world."

In 2016, Haley also signed an abortion law that banned abortions after 20 weeks from conception.

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For years, Haley spent an enormous amount of time and resources building up a resume that covered several tiers of governance and policy. But in 2017, the missing piece of policymaking would come to fruition when her now competitor Trump tapped her for UN Ambassador: foreign policy.

Within an hour of Haley being confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the UN, then-Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster become South Carolina's next governor. McMaster has been re-elected twice.

Nikki Haley joins the Donald Trump administration

On Haley's first day at work as a UN Ambassador, Haley rebuked the Russian annexation of Crimea located on Ukraine's eastern corridor.

"I consider it unfortunate that the occasion of my first appearance here is one in which I must condemn the aggressive actions of Russia," Haley said. "It is unfortunate because it is a replay of far too many instances over many years in which United States Representatives have needed to do that."

Haley aggressively pursued the Trump administration's foreign policy agenda.

On Dec. 6, 2017, Trump declared the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and planned to move the U.S. Embassy. Members of the UN Security Council banded to draft a resolution to blockade the US decision, which was then vetoed by the U.S.

“The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy,” Haley said.

After stepping down from her role as UN Ambassador in 2018, Haley formed the Stand for America PAC. In recent times, Haley's diverted a lot of her attention on the U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia diplomatic relations, often going after President Joe Biden's oversight of the military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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Since she first stepped into the Statehouse in 2005, Haley has centered her identity as the daughter of Indian immigrants in the rural South. According to the latest census figures, Asians make up merely 1.9% of the state's population and that number would have been much lower when Haley's family moved from India.

“I don’t look like many people in South Carolina,” wrote Nikki Haley in a book that came out in 2012. She also wrote that she didn't win her election as governor due to the color of her skin but on the strength of her ideas. In her recent campaign video, Haley makes the distinction of being "not white, not black, but different" and typifies an immigrant experience where minority groups have had to assimilate into largely white spaces.

In speeches, Haley has regularly commented on contemporary American issues and systemic racism. But she self-identified as white in a 2001 voting registration form.

In comparison to her probable competitors, Haley is also young. She is older than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is 44 years old, but younger than Mike Pompeo (59), Mike Pence (63), Scott (57) and Trump (76).

What are Nikki Haley's political stances and allies?

She is staunchly pro-life and has rebuked federal spending on welfare programs. Political observers told the Greenville News Haley is expected to do well with suburban women voters.

And that type of messaging could buttress her stated goal to herald a new generation of politicians and move the GOP into a post-Trump era. In South Carolina, which hosts the first in the south primary for Republicans, Haley's star quality is formidable.

McMaster. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. William Timmons recently endorsed Trump and joined his leadership team.

Devyani Chhetri covers South Carolina and national politics for the Greenville News. Follow her on Twitter @ChhetriDevyani.

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Nikki Haley kicks off 2024 campaign. What to know about her rise.