Trump Heads to South Carolina to Tighten His Dominance in Haley's Backyard

Former President Donald Trump, riding high after one of the best days of his campaign so far, will set foot in South Carolina on Saturday (10) for the first time this year to deliver a clear message: the state is his to lose.

After landslide victories in his first four presidential nominating contests, Trump has become more emboldened by his staying power as the Republican Party's front-runner. Both the former president and his campaign are more confident than ever that he will win enough delegates by mid-March to declare him the presumptive Republican nominee over former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley — months before the national convention of the Republican Party in July, several Trump campaign advisers tell CNN .

Trump's South Carolina stop comes on the heels of a busy few days of travel, having appeared in Nevada on Thursday to declare victory at the state's Republican caucuses before traveling to Pennsylvania, where he addressed a friendly crowd. at a National Rifle Association forum on Friday (9).

In a big day for his campaign, Thursday saw several positive developments for Trump, including new campaign material against President Joe Biden following the release of a scathing special counsel report. While the report did not recommend charges against Biden, it included strong language about the mishandling of classified documents and raised concerns about his memory and age.

Also on Thursday, the Supreme Court appeared prepared to side with Trump and reject an attempt in Colorado to declare him a rebel and remove him from the state's presidential vote.

In addition to Nevada, Trump also won a decisive victory on Thursday in the Republican caucus in the US Virgin Islands

Haley insists she plans to stay in the race through the Feb. 24 primaries in her home state and beyond — buoyed by her enduring fundraising prowess. But Trump and his team see the state's primary as the place where they will deal the final blow to their last major rival.

This confidence stems, in part, from Trump's continued success in domestic and public polls, which have consistently shown him with surprising leads over Haley at the national and state level. But it also comes from the wave of support experienced by the former president, his advisers say.

This optimistic view of the remaining 2024 primary elections has led the Trump campaign to take a less aggressive approach to the South Carolina primary, especially compared to the intensity of its play and vote-getting strategies in previous nominating states.

And unlike the weeks leading up to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries, when Trump and his campaign relentlessly crisscrossed states and invested millions in advertising against his rivals, Trump had a comparatively lighter agenda in South Carolina. .

Saturday's rally in Conway, about 15 miles from Myrtle Beach, will be Trump's first visit to the state in 77 days. He plans to host several more campaign events in the state in the final weeks before the Feb. 24 primary, but his team has taken a more relaxed attitude toward the race as it increasingly focuses its attention on the looming general election rematch. with Biden.

Trump's advisers insist that doesn't mean he doesn't value South Carolina.

“Ultimately, we cannot take any state for granted. But we see this as a done deal,” a senior Trump adviser told CNN specifically referring to South Carolina.

The Trump campaign's ground efforts in South Carolina this year are also substantially more sophisticated than they were during his initial presidential run in 2016, his advisers say, thanks in large part to the team they built under the senior adviser's leadership. Susie Wiles.

The campaign has staff spread across all 46 South Carolina counties, has sent out mailers touting Trump's candidacy, and has highlighted high-profile state legislators and surrogates — including Gov. Henry McMaster; US Senator Tim Scott, former presidential rival; and several prominent members of the state's congressional delegation – to attack Haley and try to embarrass her in her own backyard.

They see the surrogate strategy in particular as key to their goal of attacking Haley as much as possible and pressuring her to drop out of the race. Earlier this month, Trump's campaign held two news conferences featuring a number of his top South Carolina surrogates. The events were not well attended, sources familiar with the events said, but were primarily aimed at attracting media attention. .

“Nikki is persona non grata right now,” Justin Evans, Trump’s South Carolina director of special projects, told CNN . “Nikki represents the kind of Republicanism that Trump opposes, everything that the George Bush-Karl Rove wing of the party is embodied in Nikki Haley and represented by Nikki Haley. This is their last gasp and they know that if they lose they will have the almost impossible task of recovering any kind of position not only in this election, but in the party.”

Trump's rhetoric during his Saturday remarks will reflect that sentiment. He is expected to come down hard on Haley in his speech and argue that her refusal to drop out of the race is hurting the Republican Party, a senior adviser said.

Trump made similar comments when speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday, hours before declaring victory on convention night in Nevada.

“I think she hurts herself, but I think she hurts the party and, in some ways, she hurts the country,” Trump said.

“She did poorly in Iowa. She did very poorly in Iowa, in fact, she came in third place. Ron DeSantis hit her, but you wouldn't know that if you listened to her speech. She did poorly in New Hampshire. She did poorly no matter where she went,” the former president added.

These remarks reflect the broader vision of the Trump campaign, which wants him to become the presumptive Republican nominee as quickly as possible. According to multiple conversations with Trump's advisers, they are eager to use the full weight of the Republican Party's infrastructure, including that of the Republican National Committee, to begin seriously pivoting toward a general election fight against Biden.

Haley, in turn, seems unaffected by the pressure. A day after losing to “none of these candidates” in Nevada's non-binding primary on Tuesday, she held a fundraiser and rally in California, one of several Super Tuesday states in which she plans to compete in the next month, urging voters to stick with her.

In private and public conversations, Haley has insisted that she has no plans to drop out of the race anytime soon — and says she is committed to running against Trump by Super Tuesday on March 5.

The former governor of South Carolina has also intensified her attacks on Trump in recent weeks, attacking his mental fitness and lumping him in with Biden as one of two “grumpy old men.”