Nikki Haley can't count on help from the newcomers from South Carolina

After Nikki Haley's disappointing results in Iowa and New Hampshire earlier this year, she vowed to storm back into the next major Republican primaries to “deliver a great day in South Carolina,” the state where she was born, raised and where she occupied the Governor's Mansion for six years.

But her struggle to gain traction ahead of Saturday's South Carolina primary stems in part from a simple demographic fact: the state she left in 2017 to become Donald J. Trump's first ambassador to the United Nations, is not the state she now leads. on the way to becoming the Republican presidential candidate.

South Carolina has seen a net gain of 372,000 new residents old enough to vote since 2017. That means nearly 10 percent of the current electorate has not experienced Ms. Haley's state leadership. South Carolina defeated Florida and Texas to win last year fastest growing state in the country.

And the largest contingent of new South Carolinians comes from New York and New Jersey, many of them bringing with them affection for the Republican front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump.

It's everything Joe Harvey said he heard when listening to his customers at Ruby's New York Style Bagels, which he opened 17 months ago in the Charleston suburb of Mount Pleasant after moving from Madison, Conn.

“I give her credit for carrying on,” Harvey, 57, said of Ms. Haley, hastening to add that he was definitely not taking any political sides. “But when you hear people talk about politics, you hear them talk about Trump. He's all over the news. It is impossible to get away from him.”

Ms. Haley tends to recognize all newcomers at her state events, asking for a show of hands from those who did not live in South Carolina when she was governor. But the transplants who come to her events aren't the ones who need to worry her. It's the ones who don't.

The Lowcountry, in and around Charleston, should be her natural base of political support. Her home on Kiawah Island, just south of the city, speaks to her understanding of coastal South Carolina, with its Spanish moss, elegant cocktails and politics less influenced by the evangelical Christianity of the Upstate. state, and the elbows Our frame of mind around the state capital, Columbia, where Ms. Haley's time in the Legislature and the governor's mansion left bruised egos and lingering resentments.

But greater Charleston and Horry County, home to Myrtle Beach, are also the epicenters of South Carolina's growth. Thirty-seven people move to the Charleston area every day, mostly from out of state, said Jacki Renegar, director of research and business intelligence for the Charleston Regional Development Alliance, up from 33 in 2021.

And those newcomers aren't primarily New York hedge fund managers buying up 18th-century mansions south of Broad Street in Old Charleston, or retirees building swollen beach houses on Sullivan's and Kiawah Islands.

“Most of them are regular people,” Ms. Renegar said, as she filled the new housing developments on Daniel Island, just outside the city, or the modest neighborhoods sprouting up along the highway to Moncks Corner, the Berkeley County seat, which grew by 17.4 percent since Mrs. Haley left office. About 83 percent of transplants have higher education, 54 percent have at least a bachelor's degree, and 74 percent are of working age, between 18 and 54.

Only about 6 percent are 65 or older, Ms. Renegar said.

And many of the newcomers fall short when it comes to the old governor.

“I don't really know much about her, to be honest,” said Grace Friedl, 26, a pharmaceutical saleswoman who moved to Daniel Island from Haymarket, Virginia, in May.

For Ms. Haley, Ms. Friedl should be a prime target. She said she was in the middle of the political spectrum, willing to vote for either party and concerned about women's issues. She is frustrated by her options, which she sees as too far left or right. But when asked about her mood on Saturday, she responded with her own question: “What's on Saturday?”

Gibbs Knotts, a political scientist and dean of the humanities and social sciences at the College of Charleston, said he understood Ms. Haley's frustration.

“People moving to South Carolina, especially those who lean Republican, should be receptive to her brand of politics,” he said. “It just didn't happen.”

To be sure, Ms. Haley's campaign has tried to reach these voters. Erick Lopes, 28, walked his dogs on Daniel Island on Tuesday, wearing his friend's Buffalo Bills ski hat. Mr. Lopes, an engineer with the Defense Department, had moved to the area from Orlando, Florida, “just like everyone else” during the coronavirus pandemic, he said. His friend came with him from Buffalo.

“People knew about this place, and if they could move, they did,” he said. Remote work regulations due to the pandemic caused a wave of migration to the greater Charleston area.

The Haley campaign has been bombarding Mr. Lopes' phone with text messages, he said, conceding that, as a Republican-leaning newcomer, he should like its platform: fiscal conservatism mixed with more social tolerance than Mr. Trump . But he has no plans to vote.

“It's not that I'm against her,” he shrugged. “It's that I don't make an effort.”

New York's tri-state metropolitan area remains the biggest feeder for booming Charleston, and many of those newcomers are certainly Democrats.

Jenny Ouellette, 36, and her husband moved to Mount Pleasant from Manhattan's Upper East Side in 2015, looking for space to raise their two children. As a Democrat, she said she would vote for Ms. Haley. (Voters can participate in South Carolina's Republican primary regardless of party affiliation, as long as they did not vote in the state's Democratic primary earlier this month.)

“It may be useless in the long run,” she said, “but any kind of anti-Trump support she can get is important, at least optically.”

However, Mrs. Ouellette is not the rule. Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican whose newly appointed district includes Charleston's fastest-growing suburbs, said the newcomers from the New York region were mostly independent, fiscally conservative and more socially liberal — but largely sided with Trump.

“They lean right, not hard right, but they support Trump,” she said. “He is a fighter and they are looking back at the crazy leftist ideology they left behind.”

It is a sign of how ideological divisions in the country are often caused by the self-sorting of voters, Mr Knotts said. Democratic northerners, especially those who are voters of color, are also moving south. But they are moving to greater Atlanta and helping turn Georgia into a swing state, he said.

On the other hand, he added, “conservatives can deliberately move to places where there are more conservatives.”

An example of this is Paul, 36, and Victoria, 33, a married couple who asked that their last names not be used for fear that harm could come to them if they spoke publicly about their support for Mr Trump. They were in Mount Pleasant on Tuesday, their third visit to the area in eight months, looking for a house to move to from Marlboro, NJ. The catalytic converter was stolen last week from their brand new Chevy Tahoe in New Jersey, she said.

New Jersey was going in the wrong direction, Victoria said, as she tried to get the couple's two toddlers to set up shop at Mr. Harvey's bagel restaurant. If she and her husband could vote in the South Carolina primary, it would be for Mr. Trump.

“We don't know much about Nikki Haley, but we don't care,” Paul added. “We know what we like.”