Nikki Haley avoided saying that slavery was one of the main reasons for the US Civil War on Wednesday night, which angered Democrats and some of her rivals.

Haley, who was the US envoy to the UN under former President Donald Trump, was questioned by someone in the audience at a town hall in northern New Hampshire about what she thought was the reason for the Civil War, as reported by CNN and other media.

She then said: “I mean, I think the reason for the Civil War was basically how the government was going to work, what was allowed and not allowed, the freedoms in what people could and couldn’t do.”

Haley hesitated at first, and said, “Well, that’s not an easy question.”

he man who questioned her replied: “It’s shocking to me that you don’t say ‘slavery’ when you answer that question in 2023.”

Scholars agree that slavery was the main reason for the war, which happened between 1861 and 1865. The Southern states, which left the union, resisted efforts by Northern states to restrict slavery, especially in the west.

Haley tried to backtrack on her comments this morning on The Pulse of NH, a radio show.

She said, “Slavery was the cause of the Civil War, that’s obvious. I know it was about slavery. I’m from the South.”

It’s not clear how this will affect the race, but her rivals attacked her quickly, and her first comments won’t help her in New Hampshire, where people fought against slavery in the Civil War.

Democratic President Joe Biden shared a video of Haley’s conversation on social media and wrote: “It was about slavery.”

The press secretary for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, one of her main competitors, said on X that Haley had “made a huge mess for herself.”

Haley, like many officials from the US South, has a record of supporting parts of the Confederacy, which is what the states that left are called. She was the governor of South Carolina, the first state to leave, from 2011 to 2017.

Haley said in 2010 that the state could leave. In 2015, she passed a law that took down the Confederate flag from the state capitol after white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine Black people at a church.

Some officials later slammed her for calling that flag a “heritage” symbol for some Southerners.

Trump is leading the Republican presidential nomination race with 61 per cent support, based on a Reuters/Ipsos poll from earlier in December, while Haley and DeSantis are tied with 11 per cent.

Haley is doing much better in New Hampshire, which is the second state after Iowa to pick a Republican candidate. She has about 25 per cent support there, based on polling averages.