What can we take away from Trump's big Palmetto State victory?
Former President Donald Trump has won the South Carolina Republican primary, ABC News projects. It was a swift and embarrassing defeat for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who rose to political prominence as South Carolina’s governor. Nevertheless, in her concession speech, Haley vowed to continue her campaign into Super Tuesday on March 5.
Throughout the evening, 538 reporters, analysts and contributors broke down the results as they came in with live updates, analysis and commentary. Read our full live blog below.
If Haley truly does drag this out through Super Tuesday, I’m curious what she expects to gain from losing in a couple dozen more states. I get that her motivations are bigger than becoming the nominee at this point, but will such a thorough thumping serve such goals? Only time will tell!
—Kaleigh Rogers, 538
Tonight, Trump became the first non-incumbent Republican in the modern primary era to win all three of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Haley has failed to win New Hampshire despite demographics that were practically engineered in a lab to be good for her, and she failed to win South Carolina despite it being her home state. Trump is going to be the nominee; it’s time to start treating the primary as over.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Jacob, I agree that Haley sounded a bit like a third-party candidate tonight, taking on both frontrunners. If any voters were hoping to avoid a Trump vs. Biden rematch, it seems increasingly clear that they won't get their wish. Haley is staying in and attacking both Biden and Trump as two versions of the same thing: old, out of touch and not ready to take the country into the future. She still hasn't fully attacked Trump for his role in Jan. 6 and the court cases against him, which might win her some points with the non-Republican electorate, and it hasn't worked for her so far to try to make the age case against him. I don't think any of this will work, but we'll also have to see how Super Tuesday unfolds, since she seems to be staying in.
—Monica Potts, 538
If Haley is contemplating a third party bid, she’d have a lot of ground to make up. We’ve seen only two polls testing Haley as an independent, and both show her in the low double digits: SurveyUSA/Charles H. Riggs III has her at 13 percent in a 3-way race against Trump and Biden, with Trump at 45 percent and Biden at 40 percent, and Emerson College has her at 12 percent, with Trump at 42 and Biden at 37. When you throw in Kennedy, West and Stein, she drops to 10 percent in that SurveyUSA poll.
So, if she really wanted to make a go of a third party bid, she’d have to hope something pretty dramatic happened to move voters in her direction. Otherwise, it looks like a third party bid would be DOA.
—Mary Radcliffe, 538
