Poll shows Nikki Haley losing ground in her home state among likely GOP voters

COLUMBIA — Republican support for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley dwindled in her home state over the last few months while Donald Trump’s already commanding lead grew, according to the latest Winthrop Poll released Wednesday.

The poll, conducted after Trump won the New Hampshire GOP primary, shows the former president with a whopping 36 percentage-point lead over Haley among those likely to vote in South Carolina’s Feb. 24 contest. Early voting started Monday.

Haley’s overall support grew as she picked up voters who previously backed GOP contenders who dropped out. However, twice as many self-identified Republicans dislike her compared to three months ago.

Haley does much better among voters who self-identify as independent, who are almost evenly split between the two. But Trump has the support of nearly three of every four Republicans, according to the poll, which surveyed 1,717 registered voters from Feb. 2 to Feb. 10.

South Carolina voters do not register by party, so any registered voter who did not participate in the Democratic primary can cast a ballot. Voters who self-identified as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents were not asked if they planned to vote. Such crossover voters are likely to help Haley.

“However, not only is crossover voting less prevalent than many partisans make it out to be, it would take quite a few crossover votes to cut into Trump’s lead,” said Scott Huffmon, director of the Winthrop Poll.

Haley could still motivate on-the-fence independents and Democrats to help close the gap, he said.

Her loss in the Nevada primary to “none of these candidates” amid the polling couldn’t have helped, he added. That state-run contest was largely symbolic, with Trump participating in a separate caucus run by the Republican Party that actually counted for delegates. Haley did not campaign in the state, calling the caucus rigged for Trump, but a landslide loss to nobody was seen as an embarrassment.

The last Winthrop Poll was conducted in November, just before U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina unexpectedly dropped out of the race.

More of his supporters went to Haley than Trump, despite Scott endorsing Trump ahead of the New Hampshire primary. Haley also picked up a bit more of the voters who originally backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, which surprised Huffmon.

“I had assumed that supporters of the candidate running as ‘Trump-Lite’ would migrate to Trump, but Haley showed a surprising pull for these voters who were apparently looking for a Trump alternative,” said the director of Winthrop University’s Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research.

“That said, the sheer mathematics of winning over more of DeSantis’ declining number of supporters could do little to cut into Trump’s lead.”

Of likely voters who said they back Haley, about half of them have supported her from the race’s outset. That compares to more than 70% of those voting for Trump being with him from the beginning, according to the results.

Haley’s favorability among Republicans in South Carolina has dropped by 15 percentage points since November — from 71% to 56% in the latest poll. Meanwhile, about a third of GOP voters now have an unfavorable view of her. That’s a doubling from three months ago.

“That seems to correspond with her increasing attacks on Trump,” Huffmon said. “This would seem to indicate that in South Carolina, as apparently in the nation as whole, that the Republican Party is very much Trump’s party.”

The percentage of South Carolina voters who like or dislike Trump remains about evenly split.

The general election

President Joe Biden is expected to lose South Carolina no matter who wins the nomination. But among all of the state’s registered voters, Haley would beat Biden by a few more percentage points than Trump, according to the poll.

Huffmon noted those numbers don’t include voters who said they’re undecided or people who register to vote between now and November.

Opinions of Biden are unchanged over the last three months, with nearly 60% of all registered voters in South Carolina disapproving. Broken down by party, 90% of self-identified Republicans disapprove, while 17% of Democrats disapprove.

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