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Presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump (center of picture) takes the stage during a South Carolina Republican primary party on Saturday in Columbia.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
Trump defeated Haley decisively in South Carolina.
What this means for the presidential candidate and her future campaign.
No chance against Trump?
Columbia – Donald Trump won the traditional primary for the Republican presidential nomination after defeating Nikki Haley in South Carolina on Saturday (February 24).
Shortly after the polls closed, the race was called by news outlets, indicating that Haley was not even close to winning the race in her home state.
The latest results have Trump leading 60 percent to 39 percent, with 75 percent of the expected votes cast.
Haley has insisted she will stay in the race until Super Tuesday, March 5, but the results in South Carolina have only confirmed that she has no chance of winning.
What points speak against Haley's chances?
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Why Trump's victory matters
The result, while not surprising, was significant.
Here are three examples why:
Trump is the first Republican candidate to win both Iowa and New Hampshire who is not running for president.
Now he has also won Nevada and South Carolina.
Since the first nomination elections took place in these two states in 2008, he has been the only candidate from either party to win them.
(Trump won three of four states in 2016, as did Barack Obama in 2008).
Haley loses to Trump in her home state
It's rare for a leading candidate who stays in the race to lose his home state: consider Elizabeth Warren in 2020 (who finished third in Massachusetts, 12 points behind current President Biden) and Marco Rubio in 2016 (the Florida lost to Trump by 19 points).
It looks like Haley's defeat will top both of them.
Only relatively minor candidates like Ron Paul (2008), Dennis Kucinich (2004), Alan Keyes (2000) and Pat Robertson (1988) have lost their home states more significantly than Haley appears to be the case, according to Washington's Philip
Bump Post
noticed four years ago.
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Even in her home state, voters like Trump better than Haley
South Carolina might have been Haley's second-best chance to win in state.
New Hampshire had a large number of independent and moderate voters - with whom Haley is well received - and South Carolina had the home state connection.
But even though 8 in 10 South Carolina Republicans liked Haley during her two terms as governor, a
Fox News/AP/NORC
voter analysis found that nearly half of voters didn't care much for her as of Saturday.
And if voters in their home state don't even like them much, chances are good that voters elsewhere don't either.
Things probably won't get any better from here.
Tuesday's primary is in Michigan, where Haley is trailing by even more than she lost in each of the four primary states.
And with a dozen states voting on Super Tuesday, their gap stands at more than 60 points nationwide.
Exit polls again show antipathy towards Trump
With the Republican Party's nomination contest appearing to be all but over, the biggest question now may be what the results say about Trump's prospects in the general election.
Some results from the election day poll stand out.
31 percent of voters said Trump would not be suitable for the office of president if convicted of a crime.
South Carolina is the third state where at least 3 in 10 voters said a convicted Trump would not be suitable.
(We do not have data for Nevada.)
“I Pick Nikki”: A Haley fan’s jacket is on the floor.
© dpa
Just because those voters say he wouldn't be suitable doesn't mean they wouldn't vote for him, but it would certainly be a hurdle that at least some voters would have to overcome.
And 5 percent of voters voted for Trump but said he would be unfit to serve if convicted.
Many Haley voters are anti-Trump and not pro-Haley
Another finding of the exit poll is that much of Haley's support was explicitly directed against Trump.
While about 20 percent of voters, actively, chose them.
They said it was mostly a positive decision for them.
What is more important here is that far more than one in ten voted for her and said the vote was mainly directed against her opponent (Trump).
The
NORC
analysis found that 35 percent of voters said they were dissatisfied with Trump as a candidate and 21 percent said they would not vote for him in the general election.
At least 20 percent of voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have now said they will not vote for Trump in November.
After the vote in South Carolina, Haley appeared serious but combative.
© Chris Carlson/AP/dpa
A big unknown is how many of these voters are actually serious - and would otherwise belong to the Republican camp.
In South Carolina, any voter can participate in the Republican primary.
But only 4 percent of voters identified themselves as Democrats on Saturday.
Haley is now a representative of the anti-Trump faction
In a defiant speech earlier this week signaling she would stay in the race, Haley noted that nearly half of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire had voted for someone not named Trump.
She said that was “not good” because Trump was “a de facto incumbent.”
“That spells disaster in November,” she said.
She added on Saturday night about her share of the vote: “I know that 40 percent is not 50 percent, but I also know that 40 percent is not a tiny group.
There are a large number of voters in our Republican primary who say they want an alternative.”
Haley is a symbol of the anti-Trump electorate
All of this may be an exaggeration, considering how large the anti-Trump contingent is in the Republican Party.
In Iowa there were many votes for other pro-Trump candidates.
And South Carolina is Haley's home state.
But what we can say in this moment is that Haley has indeed become a symbol for the anti-Trump electorate.
Only one in five Haley voters said they would be satisfied with Trump as a candidate, and nearly as many said Trump was physically and mentally fit to hold the office, polls show.
(Three-quarters said he wasn't.) Even fewer said he would be fit for duty if convicted.
There are very few Haley voters who see Trump as a viable or acceptable alternative.
Given these numbers and the fact that Trump is well on his way to the nomination, votes for Haley can be seen as protest votes.
So from now on, Haley's vote shares are actually a measure of the Trump objectors in the party and not just positive votes for them.
To the author
Aaron Blake
is a senior political reporter writing for
The Fix
.
A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Hill newspaper.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on February 25, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.