Trump wins SC primary moments after polls close, deals Haley crushing blow in her own state: ‘Bigger win than we expected’

COLUMBIA, South Carolina — Donald Trump defeated GOP rival Nikki Haley in the South Carolina primary Saturday night, securing yet another win for the former president.

The race was called almost immediately after the polls closed at 7 p.m., with Trump securing all 29 winner-take-all state delegates. With some 65 percent of the vote in, Trump was up by roughly 20 points.

“This was a little sooner than we anticipated. And even a bigger win than we anticipated,” Trump said to applause on stage at the state fairgrounds in Columbia moments after the victory.

“I have never seen the Republican Party as United as it is right now,” he said.

Trump was joined on stage by several South Carolina Republican leaders, including Sen. Tim Scott, who, despite being appointed to Congress by Haley in 2013, endorsed Trump after he dropped out of the primary race.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has endorsed Trump but has butted heads with him in the past, was heavily booed by the crowd when he was introduced.

Haley — who was a two-term governor in the Palmetto State — was banking on doing better in her home state than she did in Iowa and New Hampshire.

In her concession speech Saturday night, Haley congratulated Trump on the victory but said he is not the Republican candidate best suited to beat President Biden in November.

In retrospect, I think of the 2016 campaign season as three different campaigns.

1. Campaign #1 was the GOP primary, where Trump basically came across as a troll who was looking to run an entertaining campaign that would humiliate his primary opponents (Jeb Bush in particular) and perhaps show unexpected strength in a wide field. His campaign theme was "Make America Great Again," and that was enough to win the GOP nomination on a wave of discontent among grassroots Republican supporters.

2. Campaign #2 would cover the period in 2016 between Trump securing the nomination (late spring) and Labor Day. This period included the Republican and Democratic Party conventions. If you remember back then, Trump was polling pretty poorly at that time. This was the major reason he was such a heavy underdog during the last few months of the campaign.

3. Campaign #3 started at some undetermined time after Labor Day and carried through to the end. I don't remember the exact time when this happened, but by late September 2016 there was a major change in the air around the Trump campaign. I suspect his campaign leaders had done some heavy polling and focus group work at the time. By late September, "Make America Great Again" had very subtly been replaced by a new campaign theme: "Drain the Swamp." It was at this time when I first began to see remarkably effective campaign ads like this one:

Trump vs. The Establishment

The thing to keep in mind here is that Trump's path to victory in 2016 was very much a non-traditional GOP winning presidential campaign. His victory was surprising enough, but what was even more remarkable was that the winning electoral map on Election Night looked nothing like what you'd expect from a Republican Party candidate like Mitt Romney, John McCain and George W. Bush -- with almost the entire Rust Belt in the Republican column and states like Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia in the Democratic column.

This electoral map was built on a voter cohort who would support Trump but would never vote for an establishment Republican candidate: white Democrats and independents.

I am convinced that Trump wants an "establishment Republican" candidate to stay in this race for several months so he can help set himself apart from the feckless frauds and morons in Washington who are universally despised by Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike. Nikki Haley is the perfect loser to fill this role. She represents everything that has been wrong with the Republican Party for more than 20 years, and her loss in the Nevada primary to "None of the Above" captures her pitiful public standing perfectly.

then, Trump was polling pretty poorly at that time.

If you remember that was because people were reluctant to openly support him because of the abuse they might endure. Remember there were reports of young children being attacked. It mattered not to the leftist scumbags that they were children.

Drain the swamp was nothing new in politics. The phrase had ben around since the 80s and it often was used in reference to lobbyists who bought politicians.

But even at the end it was still widely held that Clinton was going to defeat Trump by a large majority. His message had pretty much stayed on a continued path of changing D.C. which in turn would reap positive returns for the entire nation.

Because he was successful, he received a far greater number of votes. He only lost because of election fraud in 2020, period.

However, this political primary now is over, and Haley has come out as the big loser, even after everyone else stepped aside to increase her chances. At this point Haley is doing nothing positive on any front other than the Democrat front. She is not helping the nation, her citizens, her supposed party other than reaffirming to the base that the Republican establishment hates their base, and all they really care about is retaining their power within the political realm. They have no moral compass & they have no loyalty for this nation either.

She may indeed be the perfect loser, but Trump gains nothing by continuing to prove that she is a loser. Trump has already proven that by trouncing her in her home state. He need not waste another ounce of energy or a smidgen of breath on Nikki Haley. It buys him nothing more at this point. In fact, that may hurt him more than help him, as it may come off as overkill.

He shouldn't utter her name nor gloat, because he can only risk generating sympathy for her. By simply ignoring her going forward it will only anger her. Then she will end up destroying herself, which will leave him blameless.

If he does indeed seek what you say, then I am here to tell him he is wrong. Do not go there President Trump, you have defeated her move on.

What Trump needs to do is sell his plans for restoring this nation to its greatness that offers opportunities to all who want opportunities & hope that it can once again become a nation that is envied, instead of another shithole that the Democrats & RINOs have turned her into, for their own selfish enrichment.

He needs to speak about his plan in detail & sell his plan over the losing plan we are living under with Joe Biden's plan of divisiveness. Returning this nation to a strong nation once again that leads & rewards all people who strive to achieve & make the nation & by extension, the world that seeks goodness & righteousness that is unparallel by any other nation on earth, unless they want to follow our lead for themselves & their citizens by returning the Lord to the public square.

Yes that video was the most important aspect of pushing Trump over the top in 2016 against Clinton. His campaign got him noticed, and made him stand out amongst the rest of the field vying for the Republican Party's candidacy for presidency, but that video indeed played a pivotal role in the general election outcome.

Nothing has changed, except this time he is proving that he is for real by showing his willingness to sacrifice everything to finish the job he had started. He could have saved himself a lot of what he is currently facing had he decided to just fade into the sunset. He needs to have lots of people stating that in praise of him continuously, while he just lays out his plans & promises.

He needs to expend that energy & his breath on the people, for it is them he needs to motivate to get out and vote for him come hell or high water to negate the possibility of the theft they are most assuredly going to try and repeat their success of 2020.

That means we need to do a lot more talking ourselves this election cycle, in support of Donald John Trump, so that Donald John Trump is free to speak of his plans upon reentering the White House.

As Samuel Clemens said; "History doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes."

I take that to mean you can see similarities, but it doesn't guarantee the same outcome, because there are also different variables involved.

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