Some SC Republicans already stand behind Trump 2024. Others? Not so fast
Some high-profile South Carolinians already are standing behind former President Donald Trump, who carried the state’s electorate in 2016 and 2020 but who faces questions about whether he can still motivate a GOP base to the polls after seeking to overturn a legitimate election and his role in the Capitol riot, as he seeks the presidency once again.
That support is despite the fact that two other South Carolinians — former Gov. Nikki Haley, who served as Trump’s U.N. ambassador, and Sen. Tim Scott — are potential 2024 presidential hopefuls themselves.
“If President Trump continues this tone and delivers this message on a consistent basis, he will be hard to beat,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, who unsuccessfully challenged Trump in the 2016 primary but became one of his most vocal allies, tweeted Tuesday after Trump made his announcement at his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate.
“His speech tonight, contrasting his policies and results against the Biden Administration, charts a winning path for him in the primaries and general election,” Graham added.
Trump’s popularity among South Carolina’s Republican voter bloc has stayed steady over the past several years.
Trump last visited South Carolina in March to campaign for Republicans Katie Arrington, a former state lawmaker who challenged U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, and state Rep. Russell Fry, who challenged U.S. Rep. Tom Rice. Rice was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
In Arrington’s case, she lost to Mace, who went on to win reelection. Fry beat Rice and won his general election.
“He is a force of nature,” Arrington said Wednesday of Trump. “He endorsed me twice. He believed in me. I worked in his administration. There wouldn’t be anything to prohibit me” from checking Trump’s name again on the ballot.
Fry also said Wednesday that he is “proud to give him (Trump) my complete and total endorsement.”
The latest Winthrop University Poll, conducted by phone and online Oct. 22-Nov. 5, found Trump was favored over Haley in a hypothetical 2024 primary by 45% of respondents, compared with 37% who picked Haley and 10% who chose “someone else.” Another 8% were not sure, the poll said.
The poll, of 1,298 respondents with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.8%, was conducted prior to the Nov. 8 midterm elections, which resulted in Democrats keeping control of the U.S. Senate and Republicans now projected to regain the majority in the House, though slim.
Haley said in April 2021 that she would not run for president should Trump enter the race. And more than a year later, at a June stop in Iowa, Haley said she would run “if there’s a place for me,” the Des Moines Register reported.
But given her pace on the campaign trail for Republicans ahead of the midterms, her political action committee and her scheduled appearance this weekend at the Republican Jewish Coalition — a meeting that’ll include other possible 2024 candidates such as former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Tim Scott — it’s clear Haley’s name will continue to swirl in 2024 conversations.
Pence also has made several trips to South Carolina. Pompeo and DeSantis have also visited the early-voting state.
“Haley has a strong showing against the former president, who is popular within his party,” Winthrop Poll Director Scott Huffmon said in a statement. “Since this (poll) was conducted before the disappointing midterm results, for which many Republicans blame Trump, her star may have risen even further.”
Trump won a six-way South Carolina Republican primary in 2016 with 32.5% of the vote. He avoided a primary in 2020 after the South Carolina Republican Party executive committee overwhelmingly voted to scrap a race.
“As a general rule, when either party has an incumbent president in the White House, there’s no rationale to hold a primary,” Drew McKissick, chairman of the state Republican Party, said at the time after the committee’s vote.
McKissick declined to comment on Trump’s 2024 announcement.
Early backer McMaster still supports Trump
Gov. Henry McMaster, among the state’s most visible Republicans who easily won reelection Nov. 8 to serve a second four-year term, will continue to support the former president, his office said Wednesday.
In 2016, McMaster, then the state’s lieutenant governor, was the first statewide elected official to endorse Trump for president. He told The State newspaper ahead of Nov. 8 that, back then, he saw Trump as the “best candidate.”
When Trump won in 2016, he appointed Haley U.N. ambassador, thereby elevating McMaster to the state’s top office.
The two have continued a good relationship ever since, and McMaster, unlike some of his Republican governor colleagues and many other Republicans, has stayed outside of the former president’s crosshairs.
When McMaster ran for his first full term in office in 2018, he faced a runoff with Republican John Warren. Trump came to South Carolina to boost McMaster. Trump once against gave his support to McMaster earlier this year, and, in February, McMaster visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
“The governor has consistently supported President Trump and will continue to do so,” McMaster’s spokesman Brian Symmes said Wednesday.
Can Trump win a general election?
Not every Republican, however, is supporting the president’s run right away, two years before the 2024 elections.
South Carolina’s Glenn McCall, who’s on the Republican National Committee, said it’s too early for him, personally.
“I think we need to deal with Georgia,” said McCall, referring to the Dec. 6 runoff between that state’s Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. (Walker himself, as an RNC member, said he is remaining neutral about 2024.)
“That’s where the focus needs to be,” McCall added.
South Carolina Republican Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman who served in the Trump administration and then as the former president’s acting chief of staff, said he wants to see other Republicans in the 2024 mix.
“For the simple reason I think he’ll probably lose the general in 2024,” Mulvaney said Wednesday, noting the number of Trump-backed losses before, including in Georgia in 2020, and in the midterms. “It’s hard to win as a Republican nationwide if you can’t win Georgia.”
Arrington, a Trump-backed candidate who lost her primary in June, said Republicans who are on the fence about Trump’s capabilities after Republicans failed to make a so-called “red wave” in 2022 should look again.
“(House Republican Leader) Kevin McCarthy, (Senate Republican Leader) Mitch McConnell had a job to do. The Republican Party, the GOP had a job to do,” Arrington said. She added she would like to see a Trump-DeSantis, even Trump-Pompeo or Trump-Kari Lake ticket, the latter referring to the Republican Arizona governor nominee who lost.
“Why does everyone think it was Trump’s responsibility? It wasn’t,” Arrington said.
This story was originally published November 16, 2022 at 1:58 PM.
