Haley Draws 1,200 to South Carolina Brewery; Vows to Stay in Race

DANIEL ISLAND, S.C. — On a weekend when Democrats were holding their first sanctioned primary of the 2024 presidential election cycle, former Gov. Nikki Haley largely dominated the news cycle in the Palmetto State. A solid week on the hustings culminated in a rally that drew 1,200 people to this community outside of Charleston.

“I am not going anywhere,” Haley vowed before the raucous crowd gathered at the New Realm Brewing Company in this upscale island community situated between the Cooper and Wando Rivers.

As she had been saying all week, at campaign stops in the state capital of Columbia, in Hilton Head and in Lancaster, a city so far north in South Carolina that it’s actually considered part of the Charlotte, North Carolina metropolitan area, “only two states have voted so far.”

“We want the other 48 states and territories to show the power of their voice,” she said.

“We started out with 14 candidates in this race. And we’ve ticked off one at a time. A dozen of those fellows are gone, and I’ve just got one fellow left,” she said.

Anyone who has been following the contest for the Republican presidential nomination since the Iowa Caucuses and on through New Hampshire, will be familiar with the key points of Haley’s stump speech.

In a bid not to completely alienate supporters of her GOP rival, former President Donald Trump, she reminds attendees that she voted for Trump twice.

“I was proud to serve America in his administration,” she continued.

But then she talked about her change of heart, explaining that she just can’t abide the “chaos” that accompanies everything else Trump might accomplish.

“Y’all know I’m right; chaos follows him,” she said. “And we can’t be a country in disarray in a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive.

“There will be a female president of the United States. The hard truth is it will either be me or Kamala Harris,” she said later.

Haley is calling the South Carolina portion of her quest for the presidency, “The great day in South Carolina” campaign, a revival of a line that she used during her governorship to tout the economic development of the state.

“It’s always a great day in South Carolina,” she’d tell prospective companies, foreign and domestic, considering making an investment in the state.

Her Daniel Island event came on the heels of a surprise appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” in which she participated in an opening sketch that took the show’s viewers to a fake CNN Town Hall.

Haley’s turn came as Trump, played by cast member James Austin Johnson, began taking questions from the audience.

That’s when the former governor was introduced as “someone who describes herself as a concerned South Carolina voter.”

“My question,” she asked the fake Trump, ‘is why won’t you debate Nikki Haley?’”

“Oh my God, it’s her,” Johnson/Trump exclaimed, “the woman who was in charge of security on Jan. 6. It’s Nancy Pelosi.”

The appearance wasn’t without a little sting for Haley herself, most notably when guest host Ayo Edebiri, the actress and writer best known for her work on the comedy/drama “The Bear” poked at her for previously avoiding saying that the Civil War was caused by slavery.

Haley famously blundered during a December town hall in New Hampshire when an audience member asked Haley what caused the Civil War.

Haley stammered and didn’t include slavery in her list of answers.

“I was just curious, what would you say was the main cause of the Civil War, and do you think it starts with an ‘s’ and ends with a ‘lavery?’” Edebri asked.

“Yes,” Haley responded. “I probably should have said that the first time.”

All and all, though, Haley seemed thrilled by the experience, which even afforded her the chance to deliver the show’s signature opening line, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!”

“I know it was past Donald’s bedtime, so I’m looking forward to the stream of unhinged tweets in the morning,” she said via the X social media platform.

Haley even got something of a boost from the other side on Friday. At a time when Trump continues to hold a dramatic 26 percentage point lead in the polls, his campaign refuses to stop talking about his last remaining Republican opponent.

On Friday, Rep. Nancy Mace, stood in as a Trump surrogate to assail Haley on her alleged tax policy while she was governor.

“Gov. Haley started out as an accountant, but went from doing people’s taxes to raising people’s taxes, ” Mace said, speaking outside the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum in Mount Pleasant, another suburb of the city of Charleston.

Advocates for Haley responded on X, by sharing glowing comments Mace had made about Haley when the former governor was helping her on her House campaign.

Mace then said Haley was a “rockstar” and “great leader” and the reason she, Mace, ran for office in the first place.

The Mace event was followed hours later by another Republican event featuring Trump surrogates U.S. Rep. William Timmons, state Rep. Stewart Jones, former Lt. Gov. André Bauer and Greenville County Councilman Benton Blount, all of whom accused Haley of being too soft with China both as a governor and as Trump’s U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

While the latter event, in the rock-solid Republican Upstate was barely covered in the Lowcountry and coastal communities that have seen an influx of more moderate and center-left leaning newcomers, it did draw about 50 likeminded Trump supporters to rally on behalf of the former president.

There are, of course, a host of known unknowns to consider about the GOP race in the Palmetto State. First is that, while Haley should have some “favorite daughter” pull in the state, more than 400,000 current South Carolinians didn’t live in it when Haley left the governor’s office to join the Trump administration in 2017.

The other question is a holdover from the Democratic primary last Saturday. Only about 5% of registered voters cast a ballot in the primary, meaning there’s a huge population of potential moderate voters, Republican and Democrat, that could go to the polls when Republicans hold their contest on Feb. 24.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue