By Political Reporters in South Carolina
Published: 12:35, February 24, 2024 | Updated: 4:37 p.m., February 24, 2024
Voters in South Carolina go to the polls for the Republican presidential primary in the battle between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley.
Haley hopes to avoid a crushing defeat to front-runner Trump in her home state and vows to keep fighting in the race for the White House.
Trump is 30 points ahead in the polls and is already looking ahead to the November election and a likely rematch against Joe Biden.
He will take the stage at CPAC in Washington DC at midday before flying south for what he says will be a victory party.
Haley has vowed to stay in the race regardless of the outcome, but an embarrassing defeat on home soil could be the final nail in the coffin for her campaign.
She has stepped up her attacks on the 77-year-old former president, comparing him to Joe Biden over his faux pas.
Follow live coverage from reporters across The Palmetto State on ahead of Saturday night's results.
South Carolina Republican primary 2024: Everything you need to know as the primary polls open and Donald Trump tries to destroy Nikki Haley in her home state
South Carolina is the fourth and final state to vote early for the 2024 Republican presidential primary, and voters in the state will have a chance to decide on their preferred candidate on Saturday.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley was hoping for a rebound in her home state as she remains the last serious contender trying to thwart former President Donald Trump's chances of a third straight Republican nomination.
But polls leading up to Election Day show Haley trailing the former president by an average of 30 points.
breaks down what to watch on primary election day in South Carolina.
Biden's campaign calls Trump an “incompetent, anti-black tyrant” after he said his mugshot is the reason African-American voters like him
The Biden campaign criticized Donald Trump for having the “audacity” to target black voters Friday night and act as if he was the “poster boy of modern racism.”
Jasmine Harris, the Biden campaign's Black media director, called the former president “an incompetent, anti-Black tyrant.”
“This is the same man who falsely accused the Central Park 5, questioned George Floyd’s inhumanity, compared his own impeachment to a lynching, and caused the unemployment gap among Black workers to skyrocket during his presidency.”
Kari Lake receives standing ovation as she takes stage at CPAC before Donald Trump's speech: 'I like a strong man'
Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake appeared before a cheering crowd at CPAC as she began a speech praising former President Donald Trump.
“We want an alpha male,” Lake said during her speech, “we’re tired of the beta male.”
“I like a strong man,” the current Republican Senate candidate said, adding, “Let me hear it from the ladies out there!”
The crowd cheered enthusiastically.
Lake then listed her favorite Trump accomplishments, including a historic economy, secure borders and energy independence, among others.
“USA, USA, USA,” the conservative audience agreed.
Nikki Haley votes with her children and mother Raj on Kiawah Island
Nikki Haley smiled with her family as she cast her vote in the Republican primary in South Carolina, where she hopes to avoid a major loss to Donald Trump.
Haley pushed her mother, Raj, into the polling station on Kiawah Island, an affluent gated community outside Charleston.
Nikki Haley promises a seven-figure ad buy by Super Tuesday, signaling that she will NOT be backing out
Haley's campaign manager Betsy Ankney told reporters Friday night that the candidate isn't done fighting, even if she loses to Trump tonight in her home state of South Carolina.
“We know the bill is challenging, but it has never been just about who can win a Republican primary,” she said, according to NPR.
“This fight is about who can win in November, defeat the Democrats and finally get our country back on track,” she continued.
Former President Donald Trump hinted Friday night that black voters like him more now that he has posed for a mugshot and been criminally charged 91 times.
Trump headlined the Black Conservative Federation's Honors Gala in Columbia, South Carolina, on the eve of the state's Republican primary.
The ex-president and hopeful for 2024 is on average around 30 points ahead of the former UN ambassador. Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, received the endorsement of the state's Black senator, Tim Scott, last month. “When I took the mugshot in Atlanta, that mugshot was No. 1. Do you know who took it more than anyone else?” Trump asked the crowd. “The black population.”
He complained that he had been charged with “nothing” — claiming that was something black voters would understand because they see “what happens to me, happens to them.”
CPAC is filling up HOURS before Donald Trump is expected to address the crowd in National Harbor, Maryland, while Nikki Haley remains in South Carolina while primary votes are counted
On the main stage of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), there are still full hours until President Donald Trump is expected to address the crowd as he faces off against Nikki Haley in the South Carolina primary.
Thousands of conservatives crowd the Gaylord National Resort in National Harbor, Maryland, awaiting speeches from former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and former President Donald Trump.
Nikki Haley crowns the “Beast of the Southeast Bus Tour”
Donald Trump wakes up on primary morning and says the Georgia election case should be closed after the release of Fani Willis' cell phone data
Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Saturday morning to vent his anger at Fani Willis and demand that the Georgia election case be “over.”
Cellphone data revealed that Wade visited the exact area where the Fulton County district attorney rented a condominium at least 35 times before admitting to their affair – at least one of them before she hired him to impeach former President Donald Trump in her election fraud case to prosecute in Georgia.
Willis admitted in a special hearing last week that her ex-lover visited her at the apartment in Atlanta's Hapeville neighborhood, but appeared to shrug off the question and did not specify when or how often.
“Due to the fact that District Attorney Fani Willis and her lover were together long before the filing date of her bogus lawsuit against me and many other innocent people, this case must be classified as FINISHED despite her sworn statement to the contrary and, “It has no further force or effect.” Effect,” Trump wrote.
“Among other things, this case, in close coordination and cooperation with the Justice Department and the White House (numerous eight-hour meetings between the Biden people and them in DC!), was about stealing almost a million dollars for Lover Wade and Election.” Interference that involves a vicious and vile attack on the political opponent of the corrupt Joe Biden. This has never happened in the US, it's the “stuff” of third world countries and banana republics!'
More than 200,000 early voters have already cast their ballots in South Carolina
This morning, voters are streaming into the polls across South Carolina to make their choice between Nikki Haley or Donald Trump.
More than 200,000 people have already cast their votes in the open primary, so voters do not have to be registered with a party to participate.
reporters are on the ground in the Palmetto State as the wait for results begins.
To pull off an unlikely upset, Haley will need independents and Democrats to show up in droves.
The latest from the polls: Nikki Haley enters the South Carolina primary 30 points behind Donald Trump
A South Carolina poll released earlier this week suggested big trouble for Nikki Haley.
With odds of almost two to one, the 77-year-old Trump is ahead of the former UN ambassador. Haley, 52, in her home state, which is hosting the fourth and final early Republican primary contest after Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
The results came after Haley's State of the Race speech on Tuesday, in which she insisted she was “far from dropping out” and would remain in the race until Super Tuesday on March 5, despite calls for her to withdraw her application to end the White House.
“I don’t think she actually knows how to get out of this,” he added.
Nikki Haley: South Carolina polls are open, 'let's do this'
Even with the odds stacked against her, Nikki Haley still exudes confidence heading into her home state's primary.
She released a campaign video urging her supporters to go out and vote on Saturday morning, even as they stared at the barrel of degreasing.
The former South Carolina governor has vowed to stay in the race until Super Tuesday and further oust front-runner Trump.
Donald Trump Jr. says 'Mitch the Glitch' McConnell is 'like Windows 92' after his bizarre freeze and reveals who he thinks the new Senate Republican leader should be
Trump Jr. campaigned for his father in South Carolina on Friday, a day before the state's Republican primary, where the ex-president was nearly 30 points ahead of his final Republican rival, former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley , lies.
At the Trump campaign headquarters in North Charleston, South Carolina, the former eldest son lashed out at Republicans willing to fund Ukraine's war effort against Russia.
“I called out Mitch the Glitch,” Trump Jr. said. “Can we find someone who won't freeze?” It's like Windows 92. Buffer, buffer, buffer.”
He later told that he had someone in mind to replace McConnell.
Nikki Haley has used her recent campaign appearances to attack Trump over his age and say it will be “more of the same” if he wins in 2024
Nikki Haley has stepped up her personal attacks on Donald Trump in her latest appeals to voters in her home state of South Carolina.
Speaking in Monkc Corner on Friday, she said: “In a general election you have a choice. “In a primary you make your choice. This is the time for us to make our choice.'
A man in the crowd shouted to her, “Where is his wife?” referring to Melania Trump.
The crowd laughed, but she didn't answer.
Former President Donald Trump railed against Nikki Haley and Joe Biden at his final rally before the South Carolina primary.
During the hour-and-a-half-long remarks, Trump touted MAGA-nomics to fix the failing economy and criticized the numerous lawsuits against him, while also lashing out at Haley, who remains in the primary against him.
Trump spoke to thousands of enthusiastic South Carolinian supporters at Winthrop Coliseum in Rock Hill and predicted he would lose to President Biden in November in the biggest stock market crash in U.S. history.
“We’re not too worried about tomorrow,” Trump said of Saturday’s South Carolina primary. “We want to aim for November 5th.”
Haley had hoped to gain support in her home state after losing Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, but all polls show Trump still leading the former South Carolina governor by around 30 percentage points.
Donald Trump spent just $1 MILLION, compared to Nikki Haley's nearly $15 MILLION on ads in South Carolina – but is still ahead by 30 points in the polls in his home state
If political advertising won the election, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley would be running completely against Donald Trump in South Carolina. But it doesn't.
Haley and supporting groups outspent the former GOP president nearly 15 to 1 ahead of Saturday's first primary contest in the South. They poured about $15 million into ad buys, while Trump's campaign and support groups spent just a fraction of that, at just over $1 million.
But in the days leading up to the primary, the former president was ahead of Haley by double digits in polls.
The USA Today/Suffolk poll of likely Republican primary voters showed Trump at 63 percent in her home state, while Haley was at 35 percent.
On Friday, Haley argued that the goal of the contest was to be “competitive.” She campaigned the entire state much more intensely than Trump did while making her closing argument: The United States can't have more of the same with Presidents Biden and Trump. She has also stepped up her attacks on the former Republican president, and the closing ads for Haley reflect that.
In a 30-second Haley campaign spot running in South Carolina television markets, images of Trump and Biden are shown while a narrator says, “When your country is divided, your president must unite us.” Images of Haley are shown shown. The narrator continues, “She ran to revitalize our state, she did it.” It ends with Haley saying she's running for a “strong” and “proud” America.
The pro-Haley super PAC SFA Fund Inc. also ran ads in the state using excerpts from Haley's recent “State of the Race” speech, in which she called Trump “crazy.”
If South Carolina viewers watched just one hour of prime-time television, they were likely exposed to a barrage of Haley commercials that were often repeated.
Nikki Haley's neighbors reveal why the candidate they knew as a child should beat Trump
In Nikki Haley's birthplace of Bamberg, those who know her are “completely on her side” in Saturday's South Carolina Republican primary, but former President Donald Trump is still likely to win a majority in her home district.
traveled to the rural town on Thursday for the final day of early voting before Saturday's crucial contest in which Trump is expected to defeat the former South Carolina governor in her home state.
Throughout the afternoon, a slow stream of voters showed up at an annex of the Bamberg County Courthouse — the majority said they supported Trump — but not those who knew Haley personally.
“I love Nikki like she was a daughter,” said 79-year-old Joyce McMillan. “She is the most honest, intelligent, quickest-learning person I have ever met,” she said of the Republican presidential candidate.
McMillan was an accountant for Haley's parents when they ran a business in downtown Bamberg and taught the former UN ambassador the trade as a young girl.
“I ended up teaching her all the spreadsheets and financial aspects of the store when she was just 13 years old,” McMillan told . “When I left the business, she took it over, just 13, and she’s just super smart.”
McMillan said her daughter and Haley were close friends – and lived together at Clemson.
“And she spent as much time at my house as she did at Nikki’s,” McMillan remembers.
Like no Republican candidate has lost their home state to win the nomination in 50 YEARS
Nikki Haley has vowed to stay in the race no matter the results of Saturday's Republican presidential primary in South Carolina.
But history is not on their side. In most cases, losing a home state primary was seen as a death knell for the campaign.
It has been more than 50 years since a Republican presidential candidate did not represent his home state and still won the Republican presidential nomination.
The year was 1968, and Richard Nixon didn't win California, the state he once represented in Congress, but he still won the nomination.
The winner of the Republican presidential election in California was the state's governor, Ronald Reagan. Nixon actually won California in November.
Donald Trump will warn in his big speech ahead of Saturday's South Carolina primary that four more years of Joe Biden will allow Hamas and Antifa to “terrorize our streets.”
Donald Trump will deliver a major speech to conservatives on Saturday underscoring the choice they face in November's election, warning that four more years of President Joe Biden will unleash extremist forces on the country.
Polls show him on track for a stunning primary victory against Nikki Haley, his last remaining rival for the Republican nomination, later in the day in her native South Carolina.
And aides say he will all but ignore their challenge for the rest of the race and instead turn his fire on Biden.
That starts at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), taking place just outside Washington DC, where he will present a nightmare vision of dangerous streets and campuses patrolled by protesters during another Biden term.
“Imagine it… With four more years of Biden… Hamas and Antifa will terrorize our streets as their brutal ideology takes over our schools,” he will say, according to exclusive excerpts shared with .
South Carolina 2024 Republican Primary LIVE: Nikki Haley votes with her family on Kiawah Island as she looks ahead to defeat to Trump
