COLUMBIA - It was news last month when political newcomer Nikki Haley defeated South Carolina's longest-serving state House member, Rep. Larry Koon, in the Republican primary runoff. With no Democratic opponent, her election in November is assured.

But Haley's victory also marks a milestone of a different sort: When the 32-year-old Lexington businesswoman takes office, she will become the first person of Asian Indian descent to be an S.C. lawmaker, and the first member of the Sikh religion to join a state legislature in the United States.

That fact got little notice in South Carolina. Haley, who was born in Bamberg and graduated from Clemson University, has little about her to suggest her ethnic background.

"I don't think it was really talked about," said state Republican Party Executive Director Luke Byers. "Most of the folks out there just saw her as a fresh face, someone new and different."

"Out there" is House District 87, a chunk of central Lexington County that used to be mostly rural, but is rapidly filling with new suburban developments.

"Twenty years ago, Larry Koon fit that district to a T," said Byers. "Now, Nikki Haley fits that district to a T. It used to be dominated by people who had been there for years and years. Now you've got such an infusion of new families, folks from all over the country."

Much more than in South Carolina, Haley's Indian parentage has made news in media serving the Indian community in the United States, and even in some newspapers in India itself. Many writers saw her win as symbolic.

"For Sikhs, who have been subjected to periodic racial profiling since the 9/11 attacks, Haley's triumph is an important political victory," wrote the Hindustan Times. "She has promised to be a spokesperson for Sikhs and other Indian Americans."

Not true, said Haley. "I haven't promised to be a spokesperson for anybody. What I have said is that I will fight discrimination against any group. Those articles that are being written, they're all kind of putting their take on it."

But, she said, "That doesn't mean I'm not proud and feel good about my background."

Haley's parents emigrated from Amritsar, in northwest India, to Canada in 1964, then to the United States in 1969. Her father, Ajit Randhawa, is a retired biology professor who chaired the science department at Voorhees College in Denmark. Her mother, Raj, runs a $1.8 million-a-year retail clothing firm in Columbia, Exotica International, that she started in a Bamberg motel room in 1976. Nikki Haley is the company's comptroller.

"All the Indian and Sikh community is feeling proud of her," her mother said.

People of Indian origin or descent are a tiny minority in South Carolina. The 2000 Census counted only 8,300 in the state, or 0.2 percent of the population.

The Sikh religion is a monotheistic faith that fuses elements of Hinduism and Islam, teaching that God transcends religious distinctions.

Haley said that during the campaign, she was often questioned about her religion. "I was born and raised with the Sikh faith, my husband and I were married in the Methodist Church, our children have been baptized in the Methodist Church, and currently we attend both," she said.

Before this year, she went by the name of Nikki Randhawa-Haley. But she dropped her maiden name once she began campaigning. "It wouldn't fit on a yard sign," she said.

Koon's campaign never openly raised the issue of Haley's ethnicity, although it did point out in a mailing and a newspaper ad that she is registered to vote as "Nimrata N. Randhawa." Nikki is Haley's middle name.

Rod Shealy, Koon's campaign consultant, denied any attempt to make Haley's ancestry an issue. "There is no Nikki Haley registered, and I finally deduced that this other name was, in fact, her," he said. "The point was that she had voted in only one primary, as a Democrat."

Haley's campaign also reported having seen an e-mail that said, "Please remember that she is a Buddhist....I can only vote for a Christian." Shealy said the Koon campaign had nothing to do with such tactics. "At no point was her religion raised by the campaign," he said. "Now, whatever word of mouth might have existed, might have existed."

Campaign consultant Walt Whetsell, who worked for Haley in the runoff, said the tactics were part of an effort by the opposing camp to make voters aware of her background.

"Lexington County is unfairly stereotyped as a place where that kind of tactic might work," Whetsell said. "But this election flies in the face of that."

Clemson University political science professor Bruce Ransom, who studies minority group politics, said Haley's win contains little in terms of broader implications.

"She didn't run on her ethnic background, and by having only a limited number of members of that community, she wasn't looking for a voting bloc," he said. "She ran as a mainstream candidate."

If there is a lesson to be drawn, Ransom said, "it's that when voters knew about (her background), it apparently didn't make a difference. Therefore, those who made a point of it had to be subtle, because of fear that there might be a backlash."