CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is looking to win his fourth straight primary state on Saturday over Nikki Haley in South Carolina, aiming to hand a home-state embarrassment to his last remaining major rival for the Republican nomination.
Trump has a huge polling lead and the backing of the state’s top Republicans, including Sen. Tim Scott, a former rival in the race. Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador under Trump, has spent weeks crisscrossing the state that twice elected her governor warning that the dominant front-runner, who is 77 and faces four indictments, is too old and distracted to be president again.
About 6 in 10 voters in South Carolina’s GOP primary oppose continuing aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of of more than 2,300 such voters. That’s another indication of the strong night Trump is likely to have: Haley has been a supporter of continuing U.S. financial and military support for Ukraine, a position that aligns her more closely with President Joe Biden than Trump and his “Make America Great Again” movement.
In all but one primary since 1980, the Republican winner in South Carolina has gone on to be the party’s nominee. But Haley has repeatedly vowed to carry on if she loses her home state, even as Trump positions himself for a likely general election rematch against Biden.
Voting on Kiawah Island, the private residential community where she lives, Haley said she faced the day with “great gratitude.” She called herself the top alternative to “the two most disliked politicians in America,” Trump and Biden.
“There is a choice,” Haley said, speaking alongside her children and her mother. ”We can leave the drama and the chaos, and we can leave the incompetence, and we can go to something that is normal.”
Trump, who held a rally and addressed Black conservatives at a gala Friday, appeared outside Washington at the Conservative Political Action Conference before returning to South Carolina on Saturday evening. His campaign issued a statement saying Haley was “no longer living in reality.”
“The primary ends tonight and it is time to turn to the general election,” spokesman Steven Cheung said.
Even some Haley voters acknowledged that. Gloria Carroll backed Haley on Saturday, wanting to avoid a rematch of 2020′s general election — but said she’d support Trump then if need be.
“We need so much change,” Carroll said.
Trump’s backers, including those who previously supported Haley during her time as governor, seemed confident that the former president would have a solid victory.
“She’s done some good things,” Davis Paul, 36, said about Haley as he waited for Trump at a recent rally in Conway. “But I just don’t think she’s ready to tackle a candidate like Trump. I don’t think many people can.”
Ed Rathbun said Saturday in Lexington that Haley was a political opportunist who left her posts as South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador when they no longer served her interests and now was backing Ukraine funding.
“She’s a warmonger,” Rathbun said. “Like Bush. Like Obama. Like Biden.”
Trump has swept into the state for a handful of large rallies in between fundraisers and events in other states, including Michigan, which holds its GOP primary Tuesday. He has drawn much larger crowds and campaigned with Gov. Henry McMaster, who succeeded Haley, and Scott, who was elevated to the Senate by Haley.
Trump has accused Haley of staying in the race to hurt him at the behest of Democratic donors.
“All she’s trying to do is inflict pain on us so they can win in November,” he said at a Friday rally. “We’re not going to let that happen.”
In some of his events, Trump has made comments that handed Haley more fodder for her stump speeches, such as his Feb. 10 questioning of why her husband — currently on a South Carolina Army National Guard deployment to Africa — hadn’t been campaigning alongside her.
Haley turned that point into an argument that the front-runner doesn’t respect servicemembers and their families, long a criticism that has followed Trump going back to his suggesting the late Sen. John McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, wasn’t a hero because he was captured.
Trump has also asserted that he would encourage countries like Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” against NATO member countries who failed to meet the transatlantic alliance’s defense spending targets. Haley has been holding out that moment as evidence that Trump is too volatile and “getting weak in the knees when it comes to Russia.”
Terry Sullivan, a U.S. Navy veteran who lives in Hopkins, said he had planned to support Trump but changed his mind after hearing Haley’s critique of his NATO comments.
“One country can say whatever it wants, but when you have an agreement, among other nations, we should join the agreements of other nations, not just off on our own,” Sullivan said. “After listening to Nikki, I think I’m a Nikki supporter now.”
Haley has made an indirect appeal to Democrats who in large numbers sat out their own presidential primary earlier this month, adding into her stump speech a line that “anybody can vote in this primary as long as they didn’t vote in the Feb. 3 Democrat primary.”
Some of those voters have been showing up at her events, saying that although they planned to vote for Biden in the general election, they planned to cross over to the GOP primary on Saturday as a way to oppose Trump now.
In any other campaign cycle, a home state loss might be detrimental to a campaign. In 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio dropped out shortly after losing Florida in a blowout to Trump, after his campaign argued the political winds would shift in his favor once the campaign moved to his home state.
And Haley’s campaign can’t name a state in which they feel she will be victorious over Trump.
But Haley has vowed to stay in the campaign “until the last person votes,” arguing that those whose contests come after the early primaries and caucuses deserved the right to have a choice between candidates.
Haley argues that she feels “no need to kiss the ring,” as other top Republicans have, possibly with prospects of serving as Trump’s running mate in mind.
“I have no fear of Trump’s retribution,” Haley said. “I’m not looking for anything from him. My own political future is of zero concern.”
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Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and James Pollard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP and Will Weissert can be reached at https://twitter.com/apwillweissert.
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