Former US President Donald Trump defeated his rival Nikki Haley in her home state of South Carolina on Saturday in the South Carolina Republican contest, Reuters reported. This victory pushes him closer to a contest against President Joe Biden for the 2024 election.
Decisive wins in the first major nominating contests have given the former president an air of inevitability. While his legal problems remain a major unknown, Trump told supporters that he was confident he would defeat President Biden, saying, "We’re going to say 'Joe, you’re fired.'"
The former South Carolina governor vowed to stay in the race on Saturday, asserting that Trump couldn’t beat Biden in November. According to The Wall Street Journal, she pointed to the margins she was pulling in New Hampshire and South Carolina as evidence that voters were looking for an alternative.
Haley, a popular governor of South Carolina in the 2010s and the only woman to have entered the Republican contest, aimed to outperform expectations in her own backyard and ride into Super Tuesday with the wind in her sails.