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Donald Trump won the South Carolina Republican primary, defeating Nikki Haley in her home state and taking one step closer to becoming his party’s president.
The Associated Press called the race for Trump the same minute the polls closed in South Carolina Saturday night. As of 11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, with nearly 90% of votes counted, Trump held 60% and Haley 39%.
“This is a great night, it’s an early night,” Trump said in his victory speech in Columbia, South Carolina, shortly after the polls closed. “On November 5th we will look at Joe Biden, we will look him straight in the eyes – he is destroying our country – and we will say ‘Joe, you’re fired! Go away, Joe!”
Trump’s victory in South Carolina came after convincing victories in the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primary and Nevada caucuses last month. He raised new questions about how much longer Haley will remain in the competition.
Trump insisted that the Republican Party was firmly behind him Saturday night, telling supporters: “I have never seen the Republican Party as united as I am right now.”
But Haley has vowed to stay in the race, arguing that most Republicans don’t want the former president to be their nominee for the White House.
“There are a large number of voters in our Republican primary who say they want an alternative,” Haley told supporters at an election night party in Charleston. “I am a woman of my word. I will not give up this fight when a majority of Americans disapprove of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden.”
Haley has spent heavily on campaign advertising, drawing on a war chest filled with millions of dollars in donations from Wall Street and other deep-pocketed donors who have warmed to her Reaganite conservatism and think she is more likely than Trump to defeat President Joe Biden in one fell swoop. head-to-head competition in November.
A recent Marquette Law School poll found that Trump and Biden are virtually tied with voters nationwide, while Haley led Biden in a hypothetical general election matchup by 18 points.
Haley’s campaign is planning a new advertising blitz in the coming days in the numerous states that will hold primaries on Super Tuesday, March 5. Haley has spent about $11.4 million on advertising in her home state this month, according to AdImpact data—more than $10 million. more than Trump.
“The math is tough” for Haley to win the nomination, Betsy Ankney, Haley’s campaign manager, said Friday. “But the issue has never been just a question of who can win the Republican primaries. This fight is about who can win in November.”
To secure the Republican presidential nomination, a candidate must win about 1,215 delegates from across the country before the official vote that will confirm the nomination at the party’s national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July.
Trump already has 63 delegates thanks to his previous primary victories, and Haley has 17. Fifty were up for grabs in South Carolina.
Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, senior advisers to Trump’s 2024 campaign, released a memo this week insisting that “the end is near” for Haley. Citing public and private polling data, LaCivita and Wiles said Trump is on track to garner enough delegates to win the Republican nomination by mid-March.
On Saturday, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said Haley was “no longer living in reality.” He added: “The primaries end tonight and it’s time to move on to the general election.”
Additional reporting by Oliver Roeder in New York