Haley wants to fight on home turf, which her rival claims as Trump Country
A combative Nikki Haley brought her presidential campaign back to South Carolina on Wednesday after a disappointing defeat the night before in New Hampshire, telling a raucous crowd in a cavernous ballroom in North Charleston that she would fight Donald J. Trump for the Republican nomination.
“The political elites in this state and across the country are saying we should just let Donald Trump have this,” she told her supporters, who found the idea ridiculous. “Listen. There have only been two states that have voted. We have 48 left.”
Nowhere is that more immediately relevant than South Carolina, where she served two terms as governor before being tapped to become Trump's first ambassador to the United Nations. But just because it's her home state doesn't mean it's friendly territory. As Ms. Haley sought to revive her campaign here locally, Republicans as varied as local party officials and the chairman of the Republican National Committee increased pressure on her to resign. As she made her case to continue, the former president significantly consolidated his support.
As she spoke, the Trump campaign distributed a new list of endorsements in South Carolina, which now includes the state's two senators, most members of the House of Representatives, the governor and lieutenant governor, and much of the State House – more than 150 names in total. .
“Welcome home to Trump Country, Nikki,” taunted Austin McCubbin, Trump's South Carolina director.
Some of Ms. Haley's closest allies and confidantes continued to insist Wednesday that Ms. Haley had lived up to her own expectations: She had winnowed the field and was now in the two-person contest she wanted, with plenty of time until the February primary. 24 to spread her message to a broader electorate and create contrasts between herself and Mr. Trump.
“For those of us in South Carolina, we've seen people doubt her, and we've seen her overcome those doubts,” said Kim A. Wilkerson, a retired president of Bank of America in South Carolina and chairman of the board of supervision at Clemson University, Ms. Haley's alma mater.
But those doubts seemed to have a snowball effect, and the drumbeat for her withdrawal only grew louder.
“Republican voters have sent a clear message – they want the Republican Party to unite around our eventual nominee, who will be President Donald Trump,” wrote Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon and the state's Republican delegates in a joint statement. statement Wednesday. “It is difficult to imagine how Ambassador Haley can secure the nomination.”
Even the chief strategist of Ms. Haley's super PAC, the SFA Fund, Mark Harris, acknowledged Wednesday that she needed to expand her support on a state-by-state basis to remain viable, with South Carolina the next big target.
“We have to do better with Republicans; we need to do better with conservatives,” he said Wednesday. “We absolutely need to grow in those key demographics to give us a realistic path to the nomination.”
Mr. Harris said Ms. Haley and her super PAC would be in the race for the long haul. He pointed to the 17 Republican delegates she has collected, with second place in New Hampshire and third place in Iowa. Until later in the process, when the winner of the most states will take all of that state's delegates, Ms. Haley can continue to bolster her delegate count, giving her the power to claim the nomination if circumstances arise, such as a criminal conviction for any of the 91 states. crime counts he faces, drive Mr. Trump out of the race.
But Republicans in South Carolina and across the country feared the strategy would only anger Mr. Trump and his supporters, effectively disqualifying them from running — this year or in the future.
Donors who don't line up could also come into conflict with Mr. Trump. In a post on Truth Social on Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump promised: “Anyone who makes a 'contribution' to Birdbrain” — Mr. Trump's nickname for Ms. Haley — “will be permanently banned from the MAGA camp from this point forward. .”
Chad Connelly, a former South Carolina Republican Party chairman who has remained neutral in the race, was open about his concerns: “Nikki is very well-liked here, and Trump is well-liked,” he said. “He's going to roll her.”
History shows Ms. Haley that the weeks before Republicans vote in South Carolina can be tough. After Sen. John McCain of Arizona won the 2000 New Hampshire primary, he headed to South Carolina, predicting that the state's open primaries would turn Democrats and independents to his cause. Instead, a whisper campaign by supporters of George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, spoke darkly and falsely about a black daughter fathered by Mr. McCain out of wedlock. (He and his wife had adopted a daughter from an orphanage in Bangladesh.)
McCain's defeat in South Carolina put Bush back on track to win the nomination.
Trump hinted Tuesday evening that there would be a brutal campaign.
“Just a little note for Nikki,” he said during his victory speech, mocking Ms. Haley's dress. 'She's not going to win. But if she did, she would be investigated by those people within fifteen minutes, and I could already tell you five reasons why.
Hollis Felkel, a veteran Republican political consultant in South Carolina who worked for the Bush campaign in 2000 and goes by Chip, said Trump supporters were already working to get as many state lawmakers and senators into the former president's column as possible — and lawmakers to let you know that there is a list of those that are not. The dirty tricks of the 2000 campaign weren't exactly “legends,” he said, but they were “pretty bad.”
“Now we're dealing with a whole different level of vitriol, and politics has gotten exponentially uglier since 2000,” he said. “She will be hit from all sides with every insinuation and with every grudge left over from her time as governor.”
In recent days, online influencers with close ties to the Trump campaign have begun posting misogynistic, highly sexualized videos and images of Ms. Haley on social media. One of the videos, produced by a group called the Dilley Meme Team, uses “deep fake” technology to weave the sexual innuendo into her own voice. A second, released as New Hampshire voters headed to the polls on Tuesday, raises allegations of marital affairs that she has consistently denied but have dogged her since her governorship.
“The people of South Carolina are so much better than the politics of South Carolina,” said Haley campaign spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas. “Nikki Haley has proven that she will fight and win for the people, no matter what crap is thrown at her from the political class.”
And Ms. Haley stepped up her own attacks on Trump's mental capabilities, his age and his courage.
“Go to the debate stage and let's go,” she said at her rally. “Bring it, Donald, show me what you've got.”
On Wednesday morning, she delivered her standard stump speech via Zoom to the Republican Party of the U.S. Virgin Islands, which is hosting caucuses on Feb. 8.
The Haley campaign placed two ads in South Carolina media markets, the first of which targeted Mr. Trump and President Biden “A second chance that no one wants,” the second glorification her record as governor.
Meanwhile, the work of raising money to keep the campaign going, against the tide of expressions of support for Trump, continued apace. A major fundraiser is scheduled for Jan. 30 in New York City, including billionaire financier Kenneth G. Langone and investors Henry Kravis and Stanley Druckenmiller. Another one is planned for Houston shortly after.
Privately, however, her supporters are dividing into two camps, according to donors, fundraisers and donor advisors who spoke primarily on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. First, there are those who dutifully fulfill their fundraising commitments despite believing that Trump's nomination is all but certain and that she will likely withdraw within weeks.
And there are those — mainly donors whose opposition to Mr. Trump is absolute — who are still all in, believing that Ms. Haley needs the financial resources to wrest the nomination from Mr. Trump, or at least to keep her campaign alive in the future. in case something happens to him.
“Just keep her in this race,” said Fred Zeidman, a Texas businessman and one of Ms. Haley's strongest backers. “She's the last one left.”
As for her super PAC, Mr. Harris said he consulted with its biggest donors after the New Hampshire loss. “They are excited and we are confident we will have the resources we need,” he said.
Timothy C. Draper, a venture capital investor and early Haley backer who has been a major contributor to the PAC, said in an email Wednesday that “Democratic women who are likely to vote for Nikki must now register Republican to give her enough delegates.” deliver to win the primary.”
Mr. Draper's perspective takes on a dynamic that many donors pointed out on Wednesday: Ms. Haley is running in the Republican primary, but in some ways running as a third-party candidate and drawing support from both sides. This does not bode well for Ms. Haley, but it also points to weaknesses for both Mr. Trump and President Biden.
“There are all kinds of warning signs for Trump,” said Eric Levine, a New York attorney who co-organized the Jan. 30 fundraiser. “He did very poorly, very poorly, with independents and moderate Republicans. These are exactly the voters he needs to win the swing states.”
But after New Hampshire, Ms. Haley's underdog campaign may be on life support. Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, urged the party to “unify around our ultimate nominee, which is Donald Trump.” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, endorsed him, as did Senators John Kennedy of Louisiana and Deb Fischer of Nebraska.
Pete Hoekstra, the party chairman of Michigan, where the Haley campaign has set its sights on South Carolina, also backed Mr. Trump, saying in a statement: “we can start focusing our efforts on DEFEATING Joe Biden, instead of party politics. to fight.”
A Democratic state representative in South Carolina, JA Moore, said he wanted Ms. Haley to stay in the race and step up her attacks on Mr. Trump unless she dropped out and supported Mr. Biden.
But he warned: “She's getting creamed here.”
Ken Bensinger And Jasmine Ulloa reporting contributed.