![](\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit_1500w\/rockcms\/2024-02\/240222-3x2-nikki-haley-donald-trump-ew-401p-700b30.jpg\")
<\/p>\n [ad_1]\n<\/p>\n
CHARLESTON, S.C. \u2014\u00a0Former President Donald Trump won a resounding victory in South Carolina\u2019s GOP presidential primary on Saturday, NBC News projects, continuing a winning streak through each Republican nominating contest so far \u2014 and putting him in position to potentially clinch the party\u2019s presidential nomination within the next month.<\/p>\n
Defeat for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is a blow in her home state. A total of 50 delegates were on the line in Saturday\u2019s contest, which are split between the statewide winner and the winner of each congressional district.<\/p>\n
And Trump\u2019s dominant performance in the exit polling and earliest results suggest he could pull off a clean sweep, with South Carolina’s Charleston-based 1st Congressional District offering the best potential for Haley to win delegates. <\/p>\n Just after 9 p.m. ET, Trump was holding an 20-point edge over Haley.<\/p>\n With his victory on Saturday, the former president now looks to be cruising to the party\u2019s presidential nomination despite being criminally charged in four separate jurisdictions and subject to hundreds of millions of dollars in civil penalties. He could reach the necessary 1,215 delegates to clinch by mid-March, with a number of states holding de facto winner-take-all primaries on Super Tuesday (March 5) and more following after that.<\/p>\n \u201cThere has never been a spirit like this,\u201d Trump said at his election night party in Columbia. \u201cI have never seen the Republican Party so unified.\u201d<\/p>\n The NBC exit poll shows Trump and Haley fighting to a near-draw among Republican voters with college degrees: Trump with 51% to Haley\u2019s 47%. But it was a blowout among the bigger group of primary voters without degrees: Trump 74%, Haley 26%.<\/p>\n Other figures in the exit poll illustrated the steep hill Haley had to climb here \u2014\u00a0and the massive advantage enjoyed by Trump. So much of Haley\u2019s messaging painted her, as a much younger candidate, as having mental and physical fortitude that she said Trump lacks in his advanced age. Yet, exit polling showed that 38% of GOP primary voters think only Trump has the physical and mental strength needed for the presidency, while just 26% said only Haley did.<\/p>\n Haley has also been campaigning on polls showing she would be much more likely to defeat President Joe Biden in the fall. But the exit polling showed that while 57% of South Carolina primary voters think Haley would likely beat Biden, a whopping 83% said Trump likely would.<\/p>\n And when GOP primary voters who backed Haley were asked if Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, 79% said yes and just 11% said no. Among Trump voters, those numbers were flipped entirely, as just 11% said yes and 88% said no.<\/p>\n For Haley, who served as governor of South Carolina before she became Trump\u2019s ambassador to the United Nations, the loss was particularly brutal. Trump\u2019s victory could be the most lopsided in a contested South Carolina GOP primary since President George H.W. Bush defeated right-wing insurgent candidate Pat Buchanan, a former aide to multiple GOP presidents, by more than 40 points in 1992.<\/p>\n But Haley made clear that a loss in her home state on Saturday would not be pushing her out of the race any time soon, pledging to campaign through the Super Tuesday contests next month. Already, she\u2019s planned a cross-country trip to those states set to begin on Sunday.<\/p>\n Speaking at her election night party in Charleston, Haley reiterated that she is fighting on, saying, “I’m grateful that today is not the end of our story.” Though she congratulated Trump on his victory, she said she does not believe he can defeat Biden.<\/p>\n “Today, in South Carolina, we\u2019re getting around 40% of the vote,” she said, adding, “I\u2019m an accountant. I know 40% is not 50%. But I also know 40% is not some tiny group. There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative.”<\/p>\n “I said earlier this week that no matter what happens in South Carolina, I would continue to run for president,” she continued. “I\u2019m a woman of my word.”<\/p>\n In a speech on Tuesday outlining why she planned to stay in the race regardless of results in the Palmetto State, Haley called Trump \u201ca disaster\u201d for the GOP who is \u201cmore unstable and unhinged\u201d than when he first ran, adding she feels \u201cno need to kiss the ring.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I have no fear of Trump\u2019s retribution,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not looking for anything from him.\u201d<\/p>\n The pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc., said in a statement following Haley’s election eve address that she “celebrated Saturday night for getting ‘around 40 percent of the vote’ in her home state.” <\/p>\n “Nikki Haley is moving the goal posts as she continues along with her doomed candidacy,” the release continued, noting that she did not grow her percentage of the vote following last month’s New Hampshire primary.<\/p>\n But a Haley ally, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly, told NBC News that the results in South Carolina actually showed danger ahead for Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cSouth Carolina signaled a larger problem for Trump and Republicans supporting him \u2014 after losing 40-50 percent of the base in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, how can Trump and his allies make up that deficit in a general election match up with Joe Biden?\u201d one Haley ally said. \u201cHe can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump, who held one major event in the state during the final days of the contest, paid little attention to Haley in the run-up to Saturday\u2019s vote, though at a rally earlier this month he questioned where Haley’s husband was, as he is deployed overseas with the military.\u00a0<\/p>\n