By Maria Ortiz
Feb 24, 2024, 17:36 PM EST
South Carolina voters head to the polls today for the state’s 2024 Republican presidential primary. This may be former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s last chance to stop former President Donald Trump as he continues his advance toward the Republican nomination.
Polls close at 7 pm Eastern Time.
Donald Trump is looking to cruise to victory in Saturday’s South Carolina primary, while Nikki Haley needs to exceed expectations and get a boost from voters ahead of Super Tuesday.
Haley insists she plans to stay in the race through her home state’s primary and beyond, although Trump has won every delegate race so far and has a wide lead in pre-election polls in South Carolina.
Trump and his campaign see the South Carolina primary as the place where they will give the final blow to their last Republican rival.
Before heading to South Carolina, former President Donald Trump spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in the Washington, DC area. where he called himself a “political dissident” and told attendees that voting for him instead of Joe Biden is their “ticket back to freedom” and their “passport out of tyranny.”
There are 50 delegates up for grabs in South Carolina and 29 will go to the winner of the statewide vote.
South Carolina Republicans hold open primarymeaning any registered voter can participate unless they are part of the roughly 4% of registered voters who already voted in the Feb. 3 Democratic primary.
South Carolina has a strong track record in electing the party’s eventual nominee.
Since 1980, only one candidate, Mitt Romney, has clinched the party’s nomination without winning that state.
No candidate from either party has lost their home state during a primary during the modern primary era, CNN notes.
President Joe Biden easily won the South Carolina Democratic primary on Saturday, February 3.
Keep reading:
– Nikki Haley predicts that Donald Trump will not be a Republican candidate or president
– Trump arrives strongly in the South Carolina primary election where he faces Nikki Haley
– Ron DeSantis does not want to be a vice presidential candidate alongside Donald Trump in 2024