As the Trump campaign predicts former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's campaign "ends" Saturday, the latest USA Today/Suffolk University poll released Tuesday shows Trump with a 28-point lead in the Palmetto State's GOP primary race.
Trump drew an overwhelming 63% support in a poll of likely South Carolina voters to Haley's 35%. That advantage is slightly larger than the 25.3-point lead Trump holds in the current Real Clear Politics polling average.
Haley's campaign is relying on Democrat and independents who did not vote for President Joe Biden in the Democrat primary earlier this month to close the gap on Trump in the open primary that permits non-Republicans to decide the state's GOP nominee.
The poll's margin could be wider than the actual results, because it only polled about 11% of first-time GOP primary voters. Super PACs and Democrat organizations are loading up get-out-the-vote campaigns to bring out voters to the polls to vote against Trump, The State reported Monday.
"Nikki Haley's campaign ends Saturday, Feb. 24th, fittingly, in her home state, rejected by those who know her the best," Trump campaign senior members Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wrote in a memo Tuesday.
"Of course, like any wailing loser hell-bent on an alternative reality and refusing to come to grips with her imminent political mortality, we should expect more references to Kings and Coronations — even though the results of 5 elections overwhelmingly sent an unmistaken message: Nikki Haley doesn't represent Republicans any more than Joe Biden does.
"But they both have a simple mission: attack Donald Trump and use any means necessary. RINO Nikki and her team have decided that it's OK to solicit and accept money from national leftists — and — attempt to hijack GOP contests across the country by courting Democrats. That's a stain that doesn't go away."
The survey of 500 South Carolina likely Republican Primary voters was conducted between Feb. 15-18. The margin of error in the results is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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