“Our cause is right, but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans,” she said, without noting that in the last two of those elections, in 2016 and 2020, the majority backed Democrats Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden instead of Trump.

A former two-term South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, Haley is the daughter of immigrants from India and the first former female governor and first Republican Asian-American to seek the presidency. She announced she was running Tuesday in a video shared online.

She’s the fifth prominent Republican woman to run for the job, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, but in 2020 alone there were six Democratic women vying, including five members of Congress. That’s partly because gender and racial representation are more prominently touted by Democrats, but it’s also because there’s a segment of Republicans who are hostile to raising such issues, said Kelly Dittmar, the center’s director of research and scholar and an associate professor of political science.

“You hear the response from a lot of Republicans, not all, which is to say, we don’t play identity politics. We’re going to choose the best candidate,” Dittmar said in an interview.

Stale names, faded ideas

In emphasizing new leadership on Wednesday, including by calling for term limits and mental competency tests for politicians who are over 75 years old, Haley indirectly drew attention to both Biden, 80, and Trump, 76.