In this file photograph, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks throughout a city corridor on Dec. 18 in Nevada, Iowa.

Charlie Neibergall/AP

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Charlie Neibergall/AP

In this file photograph, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks throughout a city corridor on Dec. 18 in Nevada, Iowa.

Charlie Neibergall/AP

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is dealing with important backlash after failing to say slavery as a driving pressure behind the Civil War throughout a marketing campaign cease in New Hampshire.

At an occasion on Wednesday, a voter requested Haley: “what was the cause of the United States Civil War?”

She replied that the trigger “was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do.”

“I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are,” Haley continued. “And I will always stand by the fact that, I think, government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people.”

After Haley gave her reply, the voter advised her that it was “astonishing” that she gave a solution “without mentioning the word ‘slavery.'”

Last evening, President Biden stated on X in response to a video of this change that the Civil War was certainly “about slavery.”

During an interview with a neighborhood radio station on Thursday, Haley addressed what occurred.

“Of course the Civil War was about slavery,” she stated. “We know that. That’s the easy part of it.”

Haley defined that she was taken with speaking about what classes needs to be drawn from the Civil War and defended her reply to the voter.

“I know it’s about slavery,” she stated. “I am from the South.”

Haley has a complicated history in terms of problems with race. As a girl of shade, her marketing campaign was angling to strike a unique tone on problems with race and id – particularly compared to her chief rival within the GOP main, former President Donald Trump.

In this July 9, 2015 file photograph, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed a invoice into legislation that enabled the elimination of the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds greater than 50 years after the insurgent banner was raised to protest the civil rights motion.

John Bazemore/AP

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John Bazemore/AP

In this July 9, 2015 file photograph, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed a invoice into legislation that enabled the elimination of the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds greater than 50 years after the insurgent banner was raised to protest the civil rights motion.

John Bazemore/AP

As South Carolina’s governor, Haley ordered the accomplice flag be faraway from the grounds of the state capitol following the 2015 capturing of Black parishioners at a church in Charleston in 2015.

Haley additionally condemned Trump following the racist and antisemitic gathering in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. (She additionally served as U.N. ambassador to Trump from 2017 to 2018.)

The Republican Party, although, has been placing an general totally different tone in terms of problems with race and the nation’s historical past with slavery and white supremacy. Republican governors, together with a few of Haley’s rivals within the race, have been eliminating range and inclusion efforts in larger schooling, in addition to banning books which are about race.

Backlash to Haley’s feedback comes lower than three weeks earlier than Republican voters begin voting in early main states. The Iowa caucus, the primary main contest, is Jan. 15.

Haley’s marketing campaign, particularly, has had a shocking quantity of momentum within the final a number of months. The as soon as crowded subject of presidential hopefuls has been shrinking forward of early state elections however Haley has been one of many few candidates truly gaining extra help.

Just this week, there have been experiences that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ marketing campaign is struggling and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy has cut TV ad spending.

Trump has had a commanding lead within the polls in early states and nationally. Haley, nonetheless, has been the one candidate within the main that has introduced any type of problem for the previous president.

Haley routinely polls second or third in early state polling and performs properly when in head-to-head polling with Biden.