SC Shaping Up as Brutal Showdown Between Trump, Haley

NORTH CHARLESTON S.C. — Barely 24 hours after infuriating former President Donald Trump by declaring she wouldn’t drop out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley continued to goad the former president as the race pivoted to her home state of South Carolina.

A night earlier, Trump soundly beat Haley in the New Hampshire primary, garnering 54.3% of the vote and outdistancing the two-term South Carolina governor by 11 percentage points. 

A week before that, she finished a distant third behind Trump in Iowa, and was even edged out of second place by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who dropped out of the race almost immediately thereafter.

Trump no doubt thought Haley’s concession speech in Concord, New Hampshire, on election night would be her swan song as well. 

But it didn’t go that way. Haley smiled and elicited sustained applause from her supporters by questioning Trump’s mental fitness, and noted that the residents of only two of 50 states had voted so far.

And while she didn’t directly reference it at the time — she has since — she hasn’t exactly come out of the first two contests with nothing. While Trump, as the winner, now has 32 of the 1,215 delegates he needs to secure the GOP nomination, Haley has 17.

Even without that mention, Trump was nearly apoplectic when he took the stage to claim victory in Nashua, New Hampshire, Tuesday night.

“Who the hell was the imposter who went up on the stage before, and like, claimed a victory?” he said.

He went on to say, “I don’t get too angry. I get even,” before putting Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., on the spot, saying the senator, whom Haley originally appointed to the post, “must really hate her” if he was willing to endorse Trump.

“I just love you,” Scott said, trying to defuse the uncomfortable situation.

On Wednesday night, Haley laughed as she told an audience of about 800 in North Charleston that Trump had “pitched a fit” in the aftermath of her election night remarks.

“But I know that’s what he does when he’s insecure,” Haley said. “I know that’s what he does when he is threatened — and he should feel threatened.” 

She also went on to issue yet another invitation for Trump to get on a debate stage with her, one-on-one.

“Show me what you got,” she said.

For all her bravado, the four weeks leading up to the South Carolina Republican primary won’t be easy for the woman who was a success as governor and by all rights should be enjoying some kind of “favorite daughter” status.

Recent polls show Trump with a double-digit lead in the state and pulling away from her, and while she has nearly a dozen fundraisers scheduled between now and the primary, she’s  lost two major financial backers since New Hampshire: LinkedIn co-Founder Reid Hoffman and metals magnate Andy Sabin.

The Trump campaign also maintains that he’s been endorsed by nearly 160 current and former Republican officials in the state. 

The group includes Gov. Henry McMaster and U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott as well as five of the state’s six members of Congress. Haley’s lone supporter in the House is Rep. Ralph Norman.

Haley is also facing the prospect of two more losses before South Carolina votes, in the Nevada and U.S. Virgin Islands Republican caucuses, both of which are being held Feb. 8.

The consolation for Haley is the results of those two contests will likely be drowned out by the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear Trump v. Anderson that very morning, a case in which the justices could decide whether Trump is eligible to run for president at all.

Onstage in North Charleston, at a venue a stone’s throw from Charleston International Airport, Haley reminded South Carolina voters that they had “been with me before” and urged them to lend her their support one last time in the primary.

Haley, a former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, won reelection to that seat for the last time in 2008 when she garnered 83% of the vote.

A year later, at the urging of then Gov. Mark Sanford, who was term-limited, Haley announced her first bid for governor.

Though that primary went to a runoff, Haley prevailed in the runoff vote 65% to 35%, and went on to defeat Democrat Vincent Sheheen, 51% to 47%.

She was reelected four years later, again defeating Sheheen, but this time 55.9% to 41.3%.

Haley reminded her audience on Wednesday that the choice they make in the primary is “between more of the same or moving forward.”

“It’s not just Joe Biden. It’s Joe Biden and Donald Trump,” Haley said, referring to recent polls that show a majority of American voters — as much as 70% — do not want a repeat of the 2020 race.

Trump, of course, has not been silent. Though he was preoccupied with a court proceeding Thursday, he did take the time to threaten to blacklist anyone who donates to Haley’s presidential campaign.

Writing on his Truth Social platform, he warned that anyone who makes a contribution to the Haley campaign “from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp.”

“We don’t want them, and will not accept them,” he added.

Haley responded cheerily with a post to X inviting people to go ahead and donate to her candidacy.

“Well in that case … donate here. Let’s Go!” Haley wrote alongside a link to the WinRed fundraising site.

And then there was this: a draft resolution — reportedly proposed by David Bossie, a Republican national committeeman from Maryland — that would unilaterally declare Trump the Republican Party’s 2024 presumptive nominee.

While Trump would still have to reach the delegate requirements necessary to win the nomination, it would allow the party to go all in on its support for him — giving him access to additional fundraising and other resources — while also effectively telling Haley her party doesn’t want her.

“Who cares what the RNC says?” Haley spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a written statement.

“We’ll let millions of Republican voters across the country decide who should be our party’s nominee, not a bunch of Washington insiders. If [RNC Chair] Ronna McDaniel wants to be helpful she can organize a debate in South Carolina, unless she’s also worried that Trump can’t handle being on the stage for 90 minutes with Nikki Haley.”

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue