With the Republican primary in South Carolina on Saturday, many eyes are on the state's former governor Nikki Haley as she struggles to campaign against her old boss, Donald Trump.
The former president defeated Haley, who served as a former United Nations ambassador under the Trump administration, in South Carolina's GOP primary Saturday night. Despite losing in her home state, Haley refused to suspend her campaign and vowed: "We will keep fighting."
"I said earlier this week, that no matter what happens in South Carolina, I would continue to run for president," Haley said in a speech Saturday night. "I'm a woman of my word."
Haley is the last remaining major candidate seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination besides Trump, with the rest of the field dropping out over the past few months as the former president consistently polled well ahead of the pack and eventually secured dominant wins in the early state primaries. Most recently, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race prior to the New Hampshire primary after placing a distant second to the former president in the Iowa caucus.
Haley previously served as the governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017, and later served in the Trump administration as the United States ambassador to the United Nations from 2017 to 2018. Polls have indicated, however, that she'll most likely not score a major primary upset in her home state. According to polling data averaged by FiveThirtyEight, roughly 63 percent of South Carolina primary voters plan to vote for Trump on Saturday, compared to only 33 percent pledging to support Haley.
Due to her consistent losses to Trump in the handful of primary races so far, Haley has faced increasing calls to drop out, including from the former president himself. Despite this, she has insisted that she plans to remain in the race no matter how poorly she performs in her home state.
"South Carolina will vote on Saturday. But on Sunday I'll still be running for President. I'm not going anywhere," Haley said on Tuesday during a "state of the race" speech in Greenville, South Carolina.
Later, she also added: "Some of you — perhaps a few of you in the media — came here today to see if I'm dropping out of the race. Well, I'm not. Far from it."
Haley pledged during the speech to remain in the race until March 5, also known as "Super Tuesday," where a number of states and U.S. territories hold primary races at the same time, handing out a third of the GOP primary delegates all at once. While the Iowa caucus, as the first election of the primary season, is often treated as a bellwether for the direction of the race, Super Tuesday has more often been the point at which the eventual party nominees become clear.
Newsweek reached out to Haley's campaign via email for comment on Saturday morning. This story will be updated with any responses received.
As the race for the nomination has worn on, Haley has become increasingly critical of Trump, warning that the Republican Party will once again lose to President Joe Biden in November if he is the nominee. Going further, she has called Trump the only Republican candidate who can lose to Biden, despite his polling popularity with GOP voters.
Update 02/24/24, 9:20 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more
