Nikki Haley’s campaign will begin airing a three-minute TV ad in New Hampshire on Monday featuring the mother of an American college student who died in 2017 after being detained by North Korea the previous year.
The ad is an effort to highlight Haley’s foreign policy experience and the personal relationship she built with Otto Warmbier’s mother, Cindy Warmbier, on the eve of the New Hampshire primary.
“My son, Otto, was invited to North Korea on an organized tour. He was taken hostage, tortured, and murdered by the government of North Korea,” Warmbier’s mother says in the ad.
Over the course of Haley’s time as ambassador to the United Nations, she built a strong relationship with the Warmbier family after their son’s death.
“She told us to be loud and fight back. To fight for justice. To fight for ourselves. And to fight for Otto. We passed laws in Otto’s name, seized North Korean assets, and helped close down illegal businesses run by the North Koreans,” Warmbier will tell New Hampshire voters, adding that Haley demonstrated strength and compassion in supporting her traumatized family.
“I will tell you how she promised me she would do everything she could to make sure the world never forgot Otto,” Warmbier says.
The new ad is just one piece of the massive investment Haley and her allies have made in the New Hampshire primary, spending roughly twice as much on advertising there as Donald Trump’s political network since the start of the 2024 White House race. But Trump and his allies have used recent weeks to ramp up spending in the state to counter signs of momentum for the former South Carolina governor.
Warmbier has not been a regular facet of Haley’s campaign but she did introduce the former ambassador to the UN in South Carolina when she launched her campaign last year.
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