Nikki Haley has a better chance to win the GOP primary in New Hampshire than she does in South Carolina where she was once governor. The most recent New Hampshire poll, from St Anselm College, has Trump leading her 44-30% (with Christie at 12). South Carolina is looking worse for her; Trump leads her in the most recent poll (Trafalgar) 49-23%. If she loses South Carolina, it’s all over. She was so desperate the other day that she refused to say slavery was the cause of the Civil War (at a town hall in New Hampshire), scared to offend the racist MAGA base. She blamed the government instead. “I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do… I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life. They don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom. We need to have capitalism. We need to have economic freedom. We need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way.”
She should be scared of coming off like a pandering bullshit artist. Well… too late for that. Having defended the right to seccession in the past, Haley was lectured by Politico that “You can complexify it all you want, but any answer rooted in reality must acknowledge that the correct answer is: slavery. It was the cornerstone upon which the Confederacy was built. States’ rights? Yes, inasmuch as states wanted the right to allow human beings to be owned as property. (We can’t believe we need to say this in 2023.)”
Reporting for the AP, Meg Kinnard wrote that the South Carolina Feb. 24 primary “could be the last chance for anyone other than Trump to prove they can survive, noting that “her home state has shifted closer to Trump in the near-decade since she last ran for state office, threatening her ability to tap into her local roots to notch the victory she has promised… Losing South Carolina would be a huge blow to Haley’s campaign, which is counting on outlasting rivals like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and picking up momentum from people open to a Trump alternative.”
“Ten years is an eternity when all politics are national,” said Matt Moore, a former state GOP chairman. “Trump tapped into thousands of low-frequency voters who have reshaped South Carolina politics. Many of them weren’t focused on state-level issues prior, or even now.”
The former president this time has the endorsement of almost every major South Carolina Republican. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who ran against Trump, suggested he would destroy the Republican Party and openly questioned McMaster’s thinking over the 2016 endorsement, is now a close ally of the former president and is co-chairing Trump’s state campaign with McMaster.
South Carolina’s lieutenant governor, state treasurer, attorney general and three of its six Republican U.S. House members all back Trump. The only congressman to endorse Haley is Rep. Ralph Norman, a longtime ally.
Trump drew an estimated 50,000 people to a sweltering Fourth of July rally in Pickens, South Carolina, in the strongly conservative Upstate. Haley, meanwhile, set a record for her campaign last month with 2,500 people along the state’s southern coast, known for its wealthier and more traditional conservative set.
… Haley points to several accomplishments during her six years as governor, including bringing economic investment and jobs to the state, requiring companies to verify the employment eligibility of their workers, and supporting voter ID laws. She’s perhaps best remembered nationally for helping to persuade the Legislature to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse grounds after a mass shooting in which a white gunman killed eight Black church members who were attending Bible study— although Haley had previously dismissed the need for the flag to come down.
Haley’s presidential campaign points toward her previous popularity in South Carolina as a signal she will perform well when it comes time for her home state’s voters to make their selection.
“South Carolinians first elected Nikki when she was the anti-establishment, conservative candidate for governor,” said Olivia Perez-Cubas. “They know she has what it takes to win because they’ve seen her beat the odds before— not just once, but twice.”
But Trump changed Republican politics in South Carolina and nationally.
…Michael Burgess, who served as a vice chairman for the Lexington County GOP and described himself as a “never ever, ever Trumper,” said he felt the area’s shift toward populism in the years after Trump’s 2016 election.
“Lexington County is a microcosm of South Carolina,” said Burgess, who teaches AP U.S. History at a local high school. “What we’ve seen since the 2020 election is a concerted effort by MAGA to take over the county party mechanism, and essentially, when they do that, to drive out long-term establishment Reagan Republicans.”
Burgess, who said he voted for neither Trump nor Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 and supported Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, said he had initially backed South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott in the 2024 GOP primary, but now sees Haley as the party’s best bet to defeat Trump.
But another person who supported Haley when she ran in 2010 now blames her for criticizing Trump in 2016, even though he supported her work as governor.
“When she came out and said, ‘We need to ignore a lot of the loud voices,’ that kind of really rubbed me wrong, because it was those voices that got her elected governor,” said Allen Olsen, who founded a “tea party” group in South Carolina’s capital city of Columbia. “Although I understood what she was doing, it really kind of felt like I got stabbed in the back.”
State Rep. RJ May, a leader of the state’s House Freedom Caucus, argued Haley is now more of an establishment figure due to her service as governor and then United Nations ambassador.
He said he doesn’t see Trump the same way— even though Trump is now a former president running his third campaign for the White House.
“It’s hard to take that lane from Donald Trump, considering the weaponization of the federal government that we’re seeing,” said May, who has not endorsed a candidate in the presidential primary. “One thing I don’t think you can call Donald Trump is an insider.”
But there are still people in South Carolina who have been waiting for Haley to run for the White House.
At the event in Bluffton, South Carolina, that drew 2,500 people, Veronica Wetzel donned a “Nikki 2024” hat she said she bought years ago. Now, she said she’s ready to vote for Haley, in part because she wants to see Republicans win in November.
“I really don’t know if Donald Trump can win,” said Wetzel, adding she had supported Trump in past contests. “We need to put somebody in there who can win because the last thing we need right now is to lose this election.”
