Politico notes that on the one hand, Haley has been leaning into her identity as a Punjabi woman of Sikh heritage (though she is a practicing Christian). On the other hand, "In 2001 she reportedly listed her race as "white" on her voter registration card, three years before she entered into elective politics. (Haley has never publicly addressed her reasons for doing so.)"
Politico is suggesting, as others have, that by checking white she was distancing herself from her Asian Indian heritage.
One simply cannot surmise that from the box she checked. When Haley registered to vote, the options for race were "White, Black/African American, Asian, Hispanic, Other." In one the many anomalies of America's messed up racial classification system, people are asked to self-identify, but are not given the official definitions of who is included in each group.
