©Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump hosts a night party for the South Carolina Republican presidential primary election in Columbia, South Carolina, U.S., February 24, 2024. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer/File Photo
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By Nathan Layne, Alexandra Ulmer and Gram Slattery
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s campaign plans to treat Nikki Haley as irrelevant after she dominated the Republican primary in her home state of South Carolina on Saturday, eschewing attacks on her to focus instead on a rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden. the councilors said.
The former president has easily won all five Republican nominating contests so far, winning states in the Midwest, Northeast, South and West and eliminating every challenger except Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, along the road.
Trump’s advisers have said they plan to ignore the only remaining Republican contender in an effort to give his campaign a rethink. That would mark a change in tactics by a campaign that has aimed intense fire at Haley in recent weeks, with a barrage of vitriolic online attacks, pressure on her donors to switch to Trump and public mockery from the former president.
Attacking her further, they argued, would only increase coverage of a candidate who has no clear path to the Republican presidential nomination.
On the sidelines of a Trump event Friday, campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita briefly outlined the project when asked about Haley.
“Nikki who?” LaCivita told Reuters.
For her part, Haley has defiantly vowed to push ahead until Super Tuesday on March 5, when voters in 15 states and one U.S. territory will deliver a third of the delegates to the Republican National Convention, which will choose a candidate in July .
“They have the right to a real choice, not a Soviet-style election with just one candidate,” Haley told supporters Saturday night after her defeat. “I have a duty to give them that choice.”
His campaign has released an aggressive schedule for the next few days, during which he will crisscross the country from Massachusetts to Utah.
Haley had campaigned hard in South Carolina, the Southern state where she grew up and served as governor from 2011 to 2017. But Trump won by more than 20 percentage points, a margin wide enough for news outlets to to call the race for him the minute the polls closed.
However, she appears to have done a little better than state-level opinion polls predicted, which could give Haley an opportunity to argue that she has some momentum as the race expands into more states.
In comments to supporters, Haley said her vote share shows that a sizable number of Republicans still have doubts about Trump.
TAKING HALEY
It remains to be seen whether Trump, who often turns off the teleprompter, will be able to resist the temptation to continue mocking Haley, against whom he has used language criticized as sexist and racist.
But on Saturday, Trump appeared to be following his advisers’ strategy. In a daytime speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, he didn’t mention Haley’s name once.
That evening, minutes after the polls closed, he delivered a victory speech that once again did not include a single mention of Haley — a stark contrast to his remarks after winning New Hampshire in January, when he angrily denounced her I refuse to leave the race.
As part of the November general election pivot, Trump’s campaign will focus on planning for the party’s July convention, fundraising and the actual merger with the Republican National Committee, LaCivita and co-manager Susie Wiles said in a note this week.
“Nikki Haley is irrelevant and not noteworthy,” the memo said.
Trump surrogates, meanwhile, have not been shy about expressing their opinion that Haley should drop out of the race so Trump can focus on the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Rep. Russell Fry of South Carolina, who was on stage with Trump as he delivered his victory speech, said he considered the race over.
“This is a primary in name only,” he told Reuters. “And I think the Haley campaign continues to spend money and resources that could be better directed toward White House security.”
But some donors have continued to offer financial support to Haley, arguing that she is the only alternative if Trump’s campaign derails.
He has pleaded not guilty to a series of criminal charges and faces his first criminal trial next month in New York, where he is accused of falsifying business records to hide an affair with a porn star.
“I think Nikki is the de facto GOP backup if anything happens to Trump between now and the election,” said one Haley donor, who asked to remain anonymous. “Probably a 2% chance, but if you’re talking about becoming the leader of the free world, why not?”