Days before South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary, former President Donald Trump’s campaign has released an ad attacking rival Nikki Haley over her supposed stance on the state’s gasoline tax when she served as governor.
But the Trump ad has the same problem as previous attacks from former Republican candidates in the 2024 race it leaves out critical context about Haley’s position on the gas tax, omitting key comments to make her sound like the unequivocal tax-hiker she never was.
Facts First: The Trump ad fails to mention that Haley said as governor that she would only sign an increase in South Carolina’s gas tax as part of a package that also included a much larger reduction in the state income tax, leaving residents with a substantial net tax cut. The state economic board estimated in 2015 that Haley’s proposal would have saved the average taxpayer hundreds of dollars per year once it was fully implemented. The proposal was swiftly dismissed by state legislators because even some other Republicans thought it would cause the state to lose too much tax revenue. And the state gas tax was never increased during Haley’s time as governor, which ran from 2011 to 2017.
Previous context-free attacks about Haley and the gas tax were fact-checked by CNN and other media outlets long before the release of this Trump ad.
The Trump ad plays a clip of Haley saying this: “Let’s increase the gas tax by 10 cents over the next three years.”
That is a real quote is from Haley’s State of the State address in January 2015. But the ad did not explain that Haley also said in this part of the speech that she would only approve the increase if it came to her in a “three-part package deal,” along with a restructuring of the state Department of Transportation, and, critically, a…
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