Will Nikki Haley succeed in shaking up Donald Trump’s hold in the state where she was governor? South Carolina Republicans are holding their primary on Saturday to decide between the two candidates for the White House.
• Read also: Republican Party nomination: Democrats would rather have a duel against Donald Trump than Nikki Haley
Very early on, as soon as the polls opened at 7:00 a.m., voters of all ages came in a steady stream to polling stations in Charleston.
The day before, the two candidates had recalled their troops in this southeastern state, he hoping to crush his former ambassador to the UN, she dreaming of defying the polls.
“We need your vote to save America,” the former president said.
“Everyone has to go and vote,” said Nikki Haley. “Make sure you tell your neighbors, your family. Drag them as best you can to the polls!”
Despite his legal troubles, Donald Trump, 77, is the ultra-favorite in the race for the Republican nomination, which must nominate the party’s candidate for the presidential election in November.
The ex-businessman has already won his party’s first primaries and, in doing so, skimmed much of the competition.
Nikki Haley, 52, is the only one standing in her way.
The plea of this woman, the only one in the running among the Republicans, is simple: “We will not survive four more years of Trump’s chaos.”
AFP
Saying she wants to restore a certain “normality,” she urges them to choose instead “a new generation of conservative leaders.”
After Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, their duel moves to South Carolina, a state of which Nikki Haley was governor for six years.
Can her bet be a winner, when opinion polls place her almost 30 points behind Donald Trump? Verdict Saturday evening.
Jeff and Susan Stottler, husband and wife, laughingly explain that they did not vote for the same candidate, a recurring motif of “jokes” in their household.
He chose Donald Trump. “I am confident that Donald Trump will reverse everything that Joe Biden has done to put us in the economic and migratory mess we are in,” says the 61-year-old banker.
AFP
His wife, 60, checked the Haley box, even though she thinks her rival will win.
“I’m ready for a woman (president) and a different perspective,” she said. “By voting for her, I hope he will choose her as his running mate.”
In recent days, tens of thousands of voters have already decided thanks to advance voting.
The first results will fall from 7:00 p.m.
The stakes of this primary are clear
“If Trump is able to beat former Gov. Nikki Haley in his home state, that would likely make him a near-guaranteed candidate for the Republican Party nomination,” says David Darmofal, a political scientist at the University of Carolina. from South.
Nikki Haley, however, dismissed the idea of throwing in the towel right after the primary, saying that “would be the easy way out.”
After Saturday, Donald Trump and Nikki Haley should therefore face each other on Tuesday in Michigan.
The Republicans of Idaho, Missouri and North Dakota will then vote in turn, a well-orchestrated ballet which will lead the candidates to one of the biggest political events of the year, Super Tuesday.
On March 5, around fifteen states, including Texas, California, Colorado and Virginia, will simultaneously organize their polls during a major election day scrutinized by the whole world.
The primaries can in theory stretch until July. But Donald Trump’s team predicts a victory “on March 19” at the latest.
The former president wants to project himself as soon as possible into his return match with Joe Biden, Democratic president candidate for re-election, before being sucked into his serial legal troubles.
Getty Images via AFP
