Already done in 2010 and she still was elected Governor.
Via Charleston Post and Courier:
Whenever United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley ends up running for president — and many Republican strategists expect she eventually will — Democrats plan to come prepared.
The former South Carolina governor has continued to build her national profile and burnish her foreign policy credentials since taking on the prominent diplomatic role in January, asserting a combative stance against Russia and North Korea while emphasizing human rights on trips abroad.
In response, Democrats have ramped up their efforts to vet Haley, along with several other prominent Republicans. Politico reported this week the Democratic National Committee is conducting “full-scale opposition research” on Haley, Vice President Mike Pence, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, among others.
On Tuesday, South Carolina’s Democratic Party shared their 2010 opposition research file from Haley’s first run for S.C. governor with the national organization, according to a source involved in the effort.
And national Democrats have another useful resource at their disposal for reviewing the background of the former S.C. governor and GOP state representative: Trav Robertson, the state Democratic Party’s new chairman. Robertson ran state Sen. Vincent Sheheen’s campaign against Haley in 2010 and is closely familiar with her past.
“I will do my part to make sure the world knows the real Nikki Haley,” Robertson told The Post and Courier.
GOP strategists believe Haley has struck the ideal balance of creating some distance between herself and Trump without angering the irascible commander-in-chief.
“She’s walking a delicate tightrope,” said Josh Kimbrell, a conservative radio talk show host in the Upstate. “On the one hand she’s serving in an administration that she has significant stylistic differences with, but she’s also trying to maintain what I would say is a fairly traditional conservative approach to foreign policy.”
On Russia, for example, Haley has ripped into the Kremlin for aiding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has said Russia “certainly” interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. Trump, on the other hand, has often been more deferential towards Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Republicans expect Haley will be at the top of the shortlist for a promotion to secretary of state if Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon CEO who has appeared to struggle with Trump’s approach, chooses to step aside. That position would place Haley atop a vast federal agency that Trump has demonstrated little interest in bolstering, and it would bring Haley closer to the nucleus of the administration, linking her even more directly with the president’s foreign policy.