Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Saturday that regardless of the pounding she took at the polls in her home state, she is not giving up.
With 95 percent of the votes counted, former President Donald Trump easily won the South Carolina Republican presidential primary with 59.8 percent of the vote. Haley, a former governor of the state, received 39.5 percent of the votes, according to The New York Times.
Haley had said prior to the vote that she would remain in the primary at least through the March 5 Super Tuesday primaries. In her announcement on Saturday, she said she wasn’t ready to quit.
“America will come apart if we make the wrong choices. This has never been about me or my political future,” Haley said, according to USA Today.
“I am a woman of my word. I’m not giving up this fight,” she said.
Haley said voters both deserve and demand a choice other than between Trump and President Joe Biden.
“I’m not giving up this fight when a majority of Americans disapprove of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” Haley said, according to USA Today.
“South Carolina has spoken. We’re the fourth state to do so. In the next 10 days, another 21 states and territories will speak. They have the right to a real choice, not a Soviet-style election with only one candidate. And I have a duty to give them that choice,” she said.
The victory was Trump’s fourth of the Republican presidential primary season. Trump won the New Hampshire primary and caucuses in Iowa and Nevada.
Should Haley pull out of the race?
According to ABC News, exit poll results showed that Trump topped Haley in multiple categories.
Trump was preferred over Haley by a 70 percent to 28 percent margin as the better choice to handle the economy and by a 73 percent to 25 percent margin as the better choice on border security.
The exit poll found 83 percent of those participating said Trump was likely to win a general election over Biden, with 55 percent who said that of Haley.
Politico noted that exit polls showed moderate and liberal women were less enthused for Trump than other slices of the South Carolina Republican electorate.
“I’m an accountant. I know 40 percent is not 50 percent,” Haley touched on that Saturday after her loss.
“But I also know 40 percent is not some tiny group. There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative,” she said.
Pre-election polls had shown Haley trailing Trump, but she insisted she would not drop out of the race.
“I don’t care about a political future. If I did I would have been out by now,” Haley said Thursday, according to The Washington Post.
“Dropping out would be the easy route. I’ve never taken the easy route. I’ve been the underdog in every race I’ve ever run,” she said.
“I’ve always been David taking on Goliath. And like David, I’m not just fighting someone bigger than me. I’m fighting for something bigger than myself,” she said.
Haley could pay a price in the future, a political operative told The Washington Post.
“There is risk involved in this endeavor,” Rob Godfrey, a South Carolina-based consultant said
“The longer you stay in the race and come up short, the likelier you are to alienate people you might want to court down the road, the more potential damage you do to the party’s eventual nominee, and the more resources you divert from the party’s effort to win back the Senate and expand the House majority,” he said.
However, he told the newspaper, Haley “rarely has the same goals traditional candidates have, and she hasn’t ever cared whether the party apparatus likes her — she cares whether they respect her.”
