Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday secured victory over Nikki Haley, his former ambassador to the United Nations, in South Carolina’s Republican primary, advancing a step closer to a potential face-off with incumbent Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election in November.
Despite her aspirations to regain momentum after three losses in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, Haley — South Carolina’s first female governor from 2011 to 2017 — got roughly 40 percent of the vote, trailing Trump by approximately 20 percentage points. As Trump and Haley traverse the primary landscape, vying for the Republican presidential nomination state by state, Trump’s firm hold on a significant faction of the party is evident.
However, he remains embroiled in controversies surrounding his efforts to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election results and his alleged role in inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot.
Meanwhile, despite growing inner-party pressure to drop out and allow Republicans to unite around Trump, Haley vowed she was “not giving up this fight.”
“We’re getting around 40 percent of the vote. That’s about what we got in New Hampshire, too. I’m an accountant. I know 40 percent is not 50 percent. But I also know 40 percent is not some tiny group,” Haley told supporters in her election-night remarks.
“In the next 10 days, another 21 states and territories will speak,” she said. Her next station is Michigan, and then Super Tuesday on March 5, when 15 states and one territory will vote to choose candidates to compete in the general elections.
Voters cast their ballots at a polling station during the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary in Charleston, South Carolina, the United States, Feb. 3, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Whitaker/Xinhua)
Trump, who has swept all the early states, has contended that the Republican primary election was effectively over. “This was a little sooner than we anticipated,” he said in his victory speech in Columbia in South Carolina, adding that he had “never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now.”
A Marquette Law School national poll of registered voters conducted from Feb. 5 to 15 showed that Haley could hold a larger lead over Biden than Trump in a hypothetical general election match-up, considering “her strength with Republicans combined with an ability to attract more Democratic and independent voters than does Trump.”
But most observers believe Trump’s leadership in the party can hardly be shaken, and more discussion has been switched to who Trump’s election partner will be. A Morning Consult tracking poll conducted from Jan. 23 to Feb. 4 showed Trump is considerably ahead in every major Super Tuesday state.
A daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley, 52, who portrays herself as a leader from “a new generation” and attacks Trump about his age and records in making America “chaos,” has aimed to court independent voters and moderate Republicans.
But that strategy appeared to be ineffective. In the first Republican primary in Iowa, Trump secured over 50 percent of votes, while Haley even placed behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, previously considered a promising right-wing challenger to Trump who later withdrew.—Xinhua
