Haley trails Trump by 28 points in her home state

Indian American presidential aspirant Nikki Haley trails former President Donald Trump by 28 points in a new poll of likely 2024 Republican primary voters in her home state of South Carolina.

In a Monmouth University-Washington Post poll released Thursday, 46% of likely Republican primary voters in South Carolina said they plan to vote for Trump in the February primary, while 18% said they plan to vote for Haley.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) came in third place, with 10% of the support. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis followed at 9%.

READ: Nikki Haley only Republican to lead over Biden (September 7, 2023)

When looking at the candidates’ combined first-choice and second-choice support among respondents, Trump received a total of 52 %, Haley followed with a combined 34%, DeSantis had 30% and Scott had 25%.

The poll also revealed a sharp difference in views of voters who indicate they plan to support Trump and voters who say they plan to back another candidate.

Only 36% of South Carolina’s likely Republican primary voters say Joe Biden won 2020 “fair and square,” with 7% of Trump supporters holding this view and 62% of voters who support another candidate.

READ: Nikki Haley ‘surging’ in Iowa, raises $1 million after Republican debate (August 31, 2023)

As many as 57% of the respondents said Biden won due to fraud, with 87% of Trump supporters holding this view and 31% of supporters of another candidate holding this view.

Similarly, Trump supporters were more likely to say abortion should be illegal and more likely to be concerned about discrimination against white people.

Asked whether abortion should be legal, 38% overall agree, including 23% of Trump supporters and 52% of supporters of another candidate. Asked whether abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, 58% overall say they agree, including 73% of Trump supporters and 44% of supporters of other Republican candidates.

Respondents were asked which was the bigger problem: “Blacks and Hispanics losing out due to preferences for Whites” or “Whites losing out due to preferences for Blacks and Hispanics.”

READ: Four Indian Americans are running for president. Could anyone have imagined two decades ago? (August 30, 2023)

A total of 22% overall said the former, including 6% of Trump supporters and 36% of supporters of another candidate. About 49% said the latter, with 65% of Trump supporters and 38 percent of supporters of another candidate.

The poll was conducted Sep 6-11 and had a margin of error of +/- 4.6 percentage points overall.

Meanwhile, a leading political news outlet suggests Haley is finally getting a bounce in New Hampshire, an early primary state. “It’s just not the one she wants.”

Republicans who packed into the former South Carolina governor’s events in Merrimack, New Hampshire in recent days described her as “very smart” and a “natural leader,” according to Politico.

“They ‘admire’ her work at the United Nations. They even think she ‘has a good chance’ in 2024,” it said. The problem, Politico said citing Republican Carol Holman is that chance is “probably as vice president.”

“In a year with more parity in the presidential field, Haley would appear to have real momentum coming off her breakthrough performance in the first presidential debate. And she has seen a bump in recent surveys,” Politico noted.

A post-debate NMB Research poll of likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, conducted on behalf of the Competitiveness Coalition and the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, put Haley tied for second place with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — her best showing in a survey in the state yet. But the support DeSantis and Haley notched, 10% apiece, is still leagues behind Trump, at 47%, Politico noted.

“Haley’s rise is being blunted by the same force dragging down every candidate running behind Trump: Love him or hate him, many Republicans in this critical early state say they’re hard-pressed to see a scenario in which Trump isn’t the GOP nominee for the third consecutive cycle,” it said.

“There’s no doubt [that] more than any other candidate, fair or unfair, voters view Nikki Haley as a vice presidential candidate,” veteran New Hampshire-based Republican consultant Mike Dennehy was quoted as saying.

“The last debate” — where Haley ripped Trump and several of her onstage rivals for growing the national debt, and was generally more assertive than her typical campaign-trail persona — “was step No. 1 to change those voters’ minds,” Dennehy said.

In response to a request for comment from Politico, Haley’s campaign shared a memo it circulated last week, in which campaign manager Betsy Ankney said, “It’s clear that momentum is with Nikki Haley.”

She pointed to post-debate polls showing Haley gaining ground in the primary. The campaign also pointed to a CNN poll that showed Haley, in a hypothetical general election matchup, running ahead of President Joe Biden.

Haley herself has shot down speculation she’s running to be someone else’s running mate. “I don’t run for second,” Haley told Politico last month.

But even still, Haley acknowledged the unique dynamic of the 2024 primary, in which everyone is asking not just how a lower-tier candidate can win, but whether they’d be willing to run alongside Trump.

“That’s something that I hear all the time,” Haley said. “And I’ll tell you that, look, we have a country to save, and I don’t trust anybody else to do it.”