While Haley spent the day at campaign stops urging voters to “Make America Normal Again,” the former UN ambassador remains at least 30 percentage points behind Trump in most polls.
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“We can either do more of the same — and more of the same not just Joe Biden, more of the same with Donald Trump — or we can elect a new leader of the generation who will lead us forward with solutions for the future,” she added. She said at her final campaign stop in Mount Pleasant on Friday evening.
In an effort to thwart the former president's rise, one pro-Democracy group, Primary Pivot, has embarked on a grassroots effort to influence Democrats who did not vote earlier this month in Joe Biden's primary race in South Carolina (and are therefore eligible to cast a ballot). Vote in the Republican primaries) to support the former ambassador to the United Nations.
The group went to black churches and civic centers, sending hundreds of thousands of text messages and emails to people in hopes of drumming up more numbers for Haley, arguing that she would at least leave the Oval Office when the time came.
“Who would Democrats prefer to lose? “Would they rather lose to Nikki Haley or someone we legitimately feel is a threat to democracy?” said the group's senior adviser Christopher Richardson, a South Carolinian who has traditionally voted for Democrats in primary races.
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However, local Democratic Party strategist Antjuan Seawright said wooing people toward Haley is “harming the cause.”
“Ultimately, we need to be united on all fronts as Democrats,” he said. He asked: “Why are we trying to save it through its political agenda, which in some cases is as reckless as Donald Trump’s agenda?”
Back at Trump's Rock Hill rally, supporters took a much different view. A week after a New York judge ordered the former president to pay more than $US350 million ($535 million) for fraudulent business dealings, Sheila McKenna was adamant that Trump was being unfairly targeted. The stunning civil fraud ruling against Trump was finalized in New York on Friday, with the former president facing more than $US454 million ($693 million) once fines and interest are included.
“They are doing everything they can to try to oust him and ruin him financially,” she said. “They wanted to throw him in prison because they know they can’t beat him. It’s political persecution.”
Her friend Amy Walters agreed.
“The judicial system is corrupt,” she added. “But he's standing up for himself and for us. He's not a politician, he's not a globalist, he's not from the deep state. He's his own person, and he thinks for himself.”
South Carolina voters Amy Walters and Sheila McKenna.credit: Farah Tomazin
As for Nikki Haley? “She needs to get out of the race and get behind Trump,” Walters said.
To the side of the line, another voter, Shank Rock, stood wearing a white Trump suit and star-shaped sunglasses.
He said he thought Haley was a “good person” and “I think she would be a good president. I don't think she would be a better president than Trump.”
Trump fan Shank Rock at a rally in Rock Hill, South Carolina.credit: Farah Tomazin
Biden, on the other hand, was too old to instill confidence on the world stage, he added.
“Most of the time, you don't really know what's going on with his age or his hell. You can tell that in his speeches. Is he up to the job? It doesn't look good for him.”
Saturday's primary race comes against the backdrop of Trump's victories in the states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
But a defeat in her hometown would be humiliating for Haley, who grew up in Bamberg, South Carolina, as the “proud daughter of Indian immigrants,” began her political career in the state Legislature and later became a two-term governor.
She insists she will last as long as possible, but much of that depends on her ability to attract donors to keep funding her campaign through Super Tuesday on March 5, when most of the primaries and about a third of the primaries will be held. Delegates are up for grabs.
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