OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former 2024 GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley announced the heartbreaking news that her father passed away on Father’s Day, reports said.
“This morning I had to say goodbye to the smartest, sweetest, kindest, most decent man I have ever known,” Haley posted on X, sharing a February 2023 photo from a campaign event in her native South Carolina, where she announced her presidential run.
Haley, a former two-term South Carolina governor who served under then-President Donald Trump as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, did not reveal her father’s age or cause of death in her post.
In January, Haley briefly left the campaign trail to visit her father in the hospital in South Carolina, according to Politico. Reports at the time indicated that he had an unspecified type of cancer. Randhawa, originally from India’s Punjab region, moved to Canada to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia. Later, in 1969, he relocated to South Carolina and began teaching at Voorhees College, according to Politico.
Haley was born three years later.
After dropping out of the presidential race in March following her losses to Trump on Super Tuesday, Haley withheld her endorsement of her former boss for months until finally coming around to it in May. “Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I have said that many, many times. But Biden would be a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump,” she said at the time.
“Having said that, I stand by what I said in my suspension speech. Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me, and not assume that they’re just going to be with him,” she added.
After a rally in the Bronx, NY, in late May, the former president spoke to local News 12 and graciously accepted her endorsement, adding that he anticipates she will be on his team.
“I appreciated what she said,” he told the reporter after being asked about the former ambassador’s comments.
“Is there room for her on your team or, better yet, your ticket?” the reporter said.
“Well, I think she’s gonna be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts,” the former president said.
“You know, we had a nasty campaign; it was pretty nasty. But she’s a very capable person, and I’m sure she’s going to be on our team in some form. Absolutely,” he said.
After Haley’s endorsement, a growing number of big-dollar GOP donors began unifying behind Trump, helping him close what was a yawning fundraising gap with his likely 2024 rival, President Joe Biden.
The increase in billionaire donors is particularly noticeable in Silicon Valley, the country’s tech hub, which has leaned decidedly Democratic in recent election cycles.
Trump raked in $12 million in a single night last weekend in what is essentially former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s backyard in San Francisco. The extremely liberal city has been a stronghold of Democratic politics for decades. The fundraising amount reportedly did not come from the city’s average citizens but rather from large-dollar donors with ties to Silicon Valley, Just the News reported.
Located in the Bay Area, the Valley hosts numerous tech and venture capital firms. In recent weeks, many of its leading figures have, for various reasons, expressed their support for the former president.
“In 2016, the number of people from Silicon Valley I knew who supported Trump was a sample of one, which was Peter [Thiel],” former Palantir adviser Jacob Helburg told Reuters. “Today I count them in the dozens, if not more than that. Over the course of the past six months, we’ve started to see the dam break.”
The $12 million fundraiser took place at the home of venture capitalist David Sacks. The event was co-hosted by Sacks and fellow venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya.
