Although Trump was inching toward a victory in all public opinion polls, his team spent much of the final days of the primary hitting Haley in harsh terms. Trump’s campaign attacked his record on immigration and the state’s gas tax and ran a statewide television ad targeting his Social Security plan. Trump repeatedly used an insulting nickname, “Birdbrain,” when talking about Haley and even raised suggestive questions about why Haley’s husband, a South Carolina National Guardsman who is deployed overseas, didn’t show up on the road with her.
Trump and his team also publicly pressured Haley to withdraw from the race. A memo sent this week by Trump’s top advisers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, called Haley a “whining loser bent on an alternate reality and refusing to face her impending political mortality.”
At a rally the night before the primary, Trump highlighted Democratic donors’ support for Haley and said the former U.N. ambassador should “change parties.”
Haley defended herself. Her campaign spent millions of dollars on television, radio and digital ads in the state, and campaigned aggressively throughout South Carolina. She called Trump an agent of “chaos,” questioned his age and mental fitness and said Trump’s multiple courtroom dramas not only distracted from the issues facing voters but hurt his chances of winning a general election. And she criticized Trump for his comments about NATO and for comparing himself to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
But his criticism of Trump did not convince voters. And at times she has had difficulty threading the needle between saying that Trump should not be president and also that she is not a ‘Never Trumper.’
Gerri McDaniel, Trump’s 2016 South Carolina state director, who was a founder of the Myrtle Tea Party and supported Haley’s gubernatorial campaign, questioned Haley’s political future in the state.
“I really wish they weren’t competing with each other. I wish Nikki Haley had waited,” McDaniel said. “People don’t understand. What is he thinking about? What are you trying to do?