Nikki Haley

Who is Nikki Haley?

Nimrata Nikki Randhawa Haley is an American politician and the 116th and current Governor of South Carolina. A member of the Republican Party, Haley represented Lexington County in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 2005 to 2010.

In the 2010 South Carolina gubernatorial election, Haley was endorsed for the Republican nomination by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party movement. On June 8, 2010, she finished first in the four-way Republican primary election with 49% of the vote, but fell short of the 50% required to avoid a runoff election. Haley won the runoff on June 22 with 65%, and proceeded to win the general election by a 51–47% margin.

Haley is the first woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina. At the age of 42, Haley is the youngest current governor in the United States. She is one of two sitting Indian American governors in the United States, the other being fellow Republican Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. She is also the third person who is not Euro-American to have been elected as governor of a Southern state, after Virginia's L. Douglas Wilder and Louisiana's Jindal.