ST. LOUIS – South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, regarded as one of the rising national stars of the Republican Party, campaigned with former House Speaker and Gubernatorial Catherine Hanaway Monday at stops in Carthage, Joplin and St. Louis.
“I’m just so grateful that she’s willing to support me and bring a message to Missouri of how a conservative leads the state,” Hanaway told Jaime Allman on the Allman Report.
The stop in Joplin and one in St. Louis were public appearances that drew more than 50 and 100 people respectively.
Haley also came to the state to support Hanaway in November after cancelling a June trip due to the racially-motivated Charleston Church shooting that killed nine people. Haley can sympathize with Hanaway in one regard – she came from behind in 2010 to defeat three men in a loaded GOP primary, a task that Hanaway will need to replicate according to recent poll numbers that show her in third place.
Haley has been a part of the national spotlight in the last year as someone who has broken away from conventional conservative policies. She opposed legislation in her own state that would mandate transgender people use bathrooms based on biological sex, and she signed a bill to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Capitol Building after the Charleston shooting. She has also been vocal in her opposition to GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, especially in her response speech to President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address.
However, Haley has also been consistently conservative in other regards, pushing for lower taxes and decreased regulation, supporting photo voter ID policies, and signing anti-abortion bills during her time in office.
Concluding This Week in Missouri Politics‘ series on the Republican gubernatorial candidates, Hanaway will appear this Sunday.
