A former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, in her quest for the Republican presidential nomination, plans to hammer Governor DeSantis until the Iowa caucuses and beyond as a bad copy of President Trump, according to those with knowledge of her plans. 

One source who was granted anonymity to speak of these plans tells the Sun that Mrs. Haley plans to outwork her competitors on the ground while portraying them as two sides of the same coin. So far, she has received warm receptions in the earliest primary voting states — Iowa, New Hampshire, and her home state of South Carolina. 

According to polling, she sits a distant third in national Republican primary polling, with her highest ratings in Iowa and South Carolina. 

Mrs. Haley and her campaign say that Mr. DeSantis is attempting to rebrand himself as “Trump without the baggage” while doing everything the former president does. Mrs. Haley is now launching an ad that shows Mr. DeSantis mimicking Mr. Trump in tone, policy, and even physical gestures. 

In the video, Messrs. DeSantis and Trump are shown side-by-side, using the same rhetoric and hand motions during press events. The ad then states: “America deserves a choice, not an echo.”

A former South Carolina Republican Party chairman, Katon Dawson, tells the Sun that Mrs. Haley will be given extra latitude to discuss her own vision as the press covers the spectacle of a Trump-DeSantis fight. 

“Trump’s got a torpedo aimed at DeSantis and it’s a pretty big torpedo,” Mr. Dawson says. “Let those two fight it out while Nikki Haley does what she has always done: hit the ground running to 10 events a day, make fundraising calls, and prove that you’re different. That’s what it’s all about.”

Mr. Dawson has endorsed Mrs. Haley and appeared alongside her at her campaign launch event in South Carolina. 

Mrs. Haley is also trying to set herself apart in the foreign affairs arena, given her experience as America’s ambassador to the UN. On Ukraine, both men are embracing the more isolationist wing of the party while Mrs. Haley endorses full-throated economic and diplomatic support for the besieged nation.  

The ad portraying Mr. DeSantis as a Trump mini-me hits both men for their lack of support for Ukraine. In the video, Mrs. Haley highlights Mr. Trump’s recent noncommittal answer on whether he wants Ukraine to win the war and Mr. DeSantis’s characterization of the war as a “territorial dispute.”

“We’ll stand with our allies from Israel to Ukraine and stand up to our enemies in Iran and Russia,” Mrs. Haley declares in the ad. 

Mr. DeSantis has not publicly commented on Mrs. Haley or her candidacy. Mr. Trump said he spoke to her before she announced her campaign and told her to “follow her heart.”

The outside group supporting Mrs. Haley, Stand For America, is spending a great deal of time going after Mr. DeSantis. Since March, the political action committee has sent out nine emails criticizing Mr. DeSantis for his campaign launch on Twitter, his lack of support from congressional Republicans, and his fight with Disney. 

“Whether it’s getting his fellow Floridians to support his campaign, returning to Washington to curry favor, or even attempting to bolster his non-existent foreign policy record, it’s clear the charm that helped him across the finish line in Florida doesn’t work anywhere else,” an email from Stand For America stated. 

Mrs. Haley has also openly called for Disney to move some — or all — of its facilities to her home state after Mr. DeSantis pondered the idea of building a prison next to its flagship theme park. 

“If Disney would like to move their hundreds of thousands of jobs to South Carolina and bring the billions of dollars with them, I’ll let them know I’ll be happy to meet them in South Carolina and introduce them to the governor and the legislature,” she told Fox News.