Republicans and independent voters will face off Saturday as South Carolina’s Republican presidential nominee, front-runner Donald Trump, faces Nikki Haley, the state’s former governor and only rival for the party’s nomination. I headed to the voting station.
The former president won all of the first four races of his campaign and was the outrageous favorite in Saturday’s election.
A decisive victory in Haley’s home state would almost guarantee her victory at the Republican convention in July, but if Haley outperforms expectations, she could appeal to voters who are skeptical of Trump. may increase its appeal.
Haley, 52, served two terms as governor of the Palmetto State before joining President Trump’s first administration as ambassador to the United Nations in 2017.
But polls have found that she consistently trails Trump by up to 28 points among likely South Carolina voters.
Haley vowed this week that she would remain in the race until the end, even if she lost all 50 delegates to Trump.
“Come Sunday, I’m still going to run for president,” Haley said Tuesday in Greenville, South Carolina.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, pledging to campaign “every day until the last person votes,” including in Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, Utah, Virginia, Washington, D.C., North Carolina and Massachusetts. It was announced that election activities would be concentrated. Sunday through March 2nd.
“I will continue to fight until the American people close the door,” Haley said.
Her supporters in South Carolina expressed grim resolve in the days leading up to Saturday’s vote.
“I think she has one of her lawsuits on hold.” [Trump] To stop him from running for president, and she’s going to be that candidate,” one woman told the Post at an event in Haley’s Greenville.
Some wanted her to abandon the Republican Party altogether.
“My hope is that she runs as an independent,” fellow local voter Scott Hammond said Wednesday at a Haley rally in Beaufort, South Carolina. “I think it’s going to be difficult for her to beat Trump in her primary.”
But South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who withdrew from the Republican presidential race a few months ago and endorsed Trump after the former president won a decisive victory in the Iowa caucuses, said Haley He urged him not to run for the White House “in the national interest.”
“I decided in November that America needed someone stronger, more provocative, a little more violent,” said Haley, a former ally named to replace retiring Sen. Jim DeMint. Scott, who won his Senate seat in 2012, said Thursday.
On Saturday, before South Carolina’s results were counted, President Trump fielded 63 Republican delegates, but he still needs 1,215 delegates to win the party’s nomination, 874 of them on Super Tuesday. Scheduled to be acquired on March 5th, Haley is far behind with 17 players.
