COLUMBIA, S.C. – Former President Donald Trump has won the South Carolina Republican presidential primary, a project of the Fox News Decision Desk.
Trump’s victory in his home state over Nikki Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations and former two-term governor of South Carolina, was quickly called out Saturday, moving the former president one step closer to winning the 2024 Republican nomination. .
The Fox News Decision Desk predicted the Trump primary shortly after polls closed at 7 p.m. ET in the Palmetto State.
“It’s an early night and a great night,” President Trump told a crowd of supporters gathered at the South Carolina State Fairgrounds in the state capitol in Columbia, just minutes after voting ended and he was declared the winner. he said.
“We’ll celebrate for 15 minutes, but then we have to go back to work,” he added, referring to next week’s Michigan primary and Super Tuesday the following week.
Click here for live FOX News updates on the South Carolina Republican presidential primary.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally in Rock Hill, South Carolina, Friday, February 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson) (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
At his final rally before the primary on Friday, Trump predicted a “huge victory.” The event in Rock Hill, South Carolina, drew about 5,000 supporters.
Trump already has three times as many delegates as Haley, and will pick up up to 50 more tonight, according to the Fox News Decision Desk. Haley was unable to turn the hometown advantage into a victory. She told supporters this week that she had no intention of withdrawing from the race.
Looking ahead to an almost certain rematch with President Biden in the general election, President Trump said, “We’re going to show crooked Joe Biden and the radical left Democrats that we’re coming like a freight train in November.” Ta.
President Trump said Haley’s bid for the White House was nearing an end.
At a recent rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump pointed to his last major rival for the Republican nomination and said, “She’s being fooled.” “She’s done.”
and on Tuesday at Fox News Town Hall in Greenville, South Carolina. “She shouldn’t lose her home state. That shouldn’t happen,” Trump said, adding, “She’s losing it in a big way.”
The Trump campaign predicted earlier this week that Haley is “expected to struggle in South Carolina,” citing “very serious mathematical problems” in her presidential bid. “The end is near,” he predicted. He will win enough delegates to win the Republican nomination in 2024.
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But Haley remained defiant, responding to calls for her to recuse herself from a key speech minutes after the Trump campaign’s release of the memo.
“Some of you, maybe some of you in the media, came here today to see if I was withdrawing from the race. Well, I’m not. Never. That’s not the case,” said the former two-term South Carolina governor. He later served as U.N. ambassador in the Trump administration.
“I refuse to resign. South Carolina votes on Saturday, but on Sunday, I’ll still be running for president. I’m not going anywhere,” Haley said.
She added that she was “not afraid of retaliation from President Trump.”
Republican presidential candidate and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks at a campaign event in Beaufort, South Carolina, Wednesday, February 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Meg Kinard) (AP Photo/Meg Kinard)
“I’ll take the bruises, I’ll take the cuts,” Haley told supporters during a late campaign campaign in South Carolina. I’m going to be the one to get hurt.” it’s simple. Sometimes you have to feel the pain in order to appreciate your blessings. ”
Haley has been the subject of a number of verbal attacks on Trump this month, from legal entanglements to controversial comments about NATO to the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to mocking Trump’s husband, who is overseas on a military trip. increased. .
Trump won a majority of the vote in last month’s Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, and won landslide victories in the Nevada and Virgin Islands caucuses earlier this month.
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Trump made only a few stops in South Carolina this month, and Haley campaigned relentlessly. But final polls showed the former president maintaining a large double-digit lead.
In Haley’s home state of South Carolina, the former president had the support of the state’s governor, nearly the entire Congressional delegation, and numerous state lawmakers and local officials.
Dave Wilson, a veteran Republican consultant based in South Carolina, pointed to President Trump’s “swell” in the state and emphasized the former president’s “ground troops.”
Wilson, who remains neutral in the primary, also said, “Nearly 1 million people have moved to South Carolina since Nikki Haley was governor,” and that “Nikki Haley will once again put her name in South Carolina.” “I’m trying to do that,” he said.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, former two-term South Carolina governor and later ambassador to the United Nations, speaks at a rally in Camden, South Carolina, on February 19, 2024. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
South Carolina is holding an open primary, meaning Republicans, independents, and even Democrats can vote for the Republican presidential nomination, as long as they did not vote in the Democratic presidential primary on February 3.
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Haley scored 43% in New Hampshire, where she lost to Trump by 11 points.
But while independent voters have long played an important and influential role in the nation’s first primaries, they are less of a factor in South Carolina’s more conservative districts; Evangelical voters enjoy a prominent position in Republican races.
Republican presidential candidate and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks with supporters with the USS Yorktown in the background during an event at the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum on Friday, February 23, 2024 in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (AP) Photo/Mike Smith) (AP Photo/Mike Smith)
Regardless of the outcome in South Carolina, Haley has repeatedly promised in recent weeks that she would remain in the race for the Republican presidential nomination until at least March 5, when 15 states hold Super Tuesday.
“We’re focused on every state in front of us. On Saturday, it’s South Carolina right now. After that, it’s Michigan.” [which holds a primary on Tuesday, Feb. 27]then it’s going to be a Super Tuesday state and we’ll go from there,” Haley told FOX News Digital in an interview Wednesday in North Augusta, South Carolina.
And on Friday, Haley’s campaign announced a multimillion-dollar national cable ad campaign ahead of Super Tuesday.
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Nearly 800 delegates will gather on Super Tuesday, and over 150 delegates will be up for grabs over the next two weeks. Among the states that hold elections on Super Tuesday are delegate-rich California and Texas, while other large states such as Florida, Illinois and Ohio hold winner-take-all races on March 19. The primary election will be held. Polls in many of these states show Trump holding a significant lead. Haley.
Donald Trump greets supporters after sitting in a town hall hosted by Laura Ingraham on FOX News’ “The Ingraham Angle” on February 20, 2024 in Greenville, South Carolina. president. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
In a memo, the Trump campaign said it expected the former president to win the nomination on March 19, even under the “most generous model” for Haley.
Asked by Fox News what she would do if Trump secured the nomination next month, Haley quickly replied, “Let’s see if that happens.”
FOX News’ Cyril Clark and Deirdre Heavey contributed to this report.
Get the latest on the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more with Fox News Digital’s Election Hub.
