Former President Donald Trump has defeated former UN ambassador Nikki Haley within the South Carolina GOP presidential main, a outcome that represents a big blow to her marketing campaign.
CNN, AP, NBC, and others known as the race for Trump instantly after polls closed at 7 p.m. ET.
For Haley, who’s the final remaining main Republican candidate nonetheless difficult Trump, the defeat comes within the state the place she as soon as served as governor.
It was in South Carolina the place Haley, first elected in 2010 in what was a strongly Republican cycle throughout the nation, soared to prominence in nationwide GOP circles.
The South Carolina main is Haley’s third straight loss to the previous president after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire main. (Trump ran unopposed within the Nevada caucus; Haley misplaced the Nevada main to “None of those candidates.“)
Trump has lengthy cultivated relationships with high Republican leaders within the state, which benefited him enormously throughout this main cycle as most high Republicans within the state lined up behind him — and never Haley — regardless of the previous governor’s tenure in Columbia.
Haley now finds herself within the place of battling Trump forward of Tremendous Tuesday, when voters in a slew of delegate-rich states like California and Texas will solid ballots on March 5, which might speed up Trump’s momentum even additional as he seems to be to the overall election in a possible rematch in opposition to President Joe Biden.
In latest weeks, Haley has ramped up her criticism of Trump, arguing that the previous president is consistently surrounded by “chaos” and stating that the nation cannot afford to have him serve within the Oval Workplace as soon as once more. She has additionally criticized him on every part from his rising affect over social gathering affairs on the Republican Nationwide Committee to his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin following the dying of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny earlier in February.
However Trump’s assist among the many GOP voters nationally has up to now endured.
