Former Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley announced on Father’s Day that her father had passed away. In a heartbreaking post on X, she shared a photo from February 2023 when she was campaigning in South Carolina for her bid to be the GOP’s nominee in the 2024 election. Haley did not reveal her father’s age or cause of death in her post.
Nikki Haley, a former two-term South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under then-President Donald Trump, left the campaign trail briefly in January when her father was hospitalized in South Carolina with an unspecified type of cancer, according to Politico. Her father, Ajit Randhawa, originally from India’s Punjab region, moved to Canada to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia before relocating to South Carolina in 1969 and starting his teaching career at Voorhees College.
In March, after her losses to Trump on Super Tuesday, Haley suspended her presidential campaign, withholding her endorsement of her former boss for months until she finally came around in May. In a statement at the time, she said, “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.
After a rally in the Bronx, NY, in late May, former President Donald Trump spoke to local News 12 and graciously accepted Haley’s endorsement, adding that he anticipates she will be on his team. I appreciated what she said,” he told the reporter when asked about the former ambassador’s comments.
Haley’s endorsement of Trump has led to a growing number of big-dollar GOP donors unifying behind him, helping close the fundraising gap with his likely 2024 rival, President Joe Biden. This increase in billionaire donors is particularly noticeable in Silicon Valley, which has leaned decidedly Democratic in recent election cycles.
In San Francisco, Trump raked in $12 million in a single night last weekend. The event took place at the home of venture capitalist David Sacks and was co-hosted by Sacks and fellow venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya. Former Palantir adviser Jacob Helburg told Reuters that the number of Silicon Valley figures supporting Trump has grown significantly, from just one in 2016 (Peter Thiel) to dozens today.
