South Carolina primary 2024: Trump projected to win, Haley vows to stay in the race
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.
Latest headlines:
Trump leads as expected as we get more votes
Trump is projected to win tonight, and, as expected, his edge is showing up as we get actual returns from around South Carolina. With 24 percent of the expected vote reporting, he leads Haley by 15 points, 57 percent to 42 percent. We have nearly all the vote in from three counties, but only one especially sizable one: Berkeley County, which sits next door to Charleston. There, Trump leads by 17 points, 58 percent to 41 percent. In trying to gauge just how strong that is for Trump relative to 2016, it's a tad bit worse than the combined 62 percent vote share that Trump, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson collected in the county back then. Still, it points to the all-but-certain outcome of a Trump victory tonight.
—Geoffrey Skelley, 538
Haley’s taking a while to speak …
Haley still hasn’t come out to address supporters yet. This is probably reading too much into it, but the longer she waits, the more I wonder if she is going to drop out. After New Hampshire, she spoke almost immediately.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Other candidates will be on the ballot, but Haley might have advantage
That's true, Nathaniel. But maybe Haley is hoping that actively campaigning, and still having a campaign apparatus running, will give her an advantage over the other also-rans.
—Monica Potts, 538
Is Trump is heading for a delegate sweep?
Remember that the primary is ultimately all about the delegates candidates win to vote for them at the RNC in July. In the delegate math tonight, Trump is coming out way ahead. South Carolina awards delegates in two sets: 29 are awarded to the winner of the statewide popular vote (which are all going to Trump tonight) and the remaining 21 are split equally between the remaining 7 congressional districts. According to ABC's delegate projections Trump has already won 38 delegates tonight, with 12 left to assign in 4 more districts. But if Trump is heading for a 30-point margin statewide, it's unlikely Haley will win any of those that remain.
Our delegate benchmarks model had Haley needing all 50 tonight to be on track for the GOP nomination. It is her home state, after all.
—G. Elliott Morris, 538
Listen to this podcast while you wait!
If you are looking for something to listen to while we wait for polls to close and results to come in, allow me to suggest our latest episode of the 538 Politics podcast. We talk about what to expect tonight, including how South Carolina's primary electorate is different from that of other early states and how the results might shape what Haley does next. We also had a debate about a recent poll on presidential greatness and looked at polling that suggests the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have created some significant divides within the two parties.
—Galen Druke, 538