With ten days left until the South Carolina Republican primary, a new poll shows former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley trailing former president Donald Trump by 36 points in her home state.
Only 29 percent of likely Republican primary voters in the Palmetto State support Haley compared to 65 percent of respondents who back Trump, according to a Winthrop University poll released Wednesday. The results, which are nearly identical to the latest FiveThirtyEight polling average, show Haley is losing ground against Trump as the South Carolina contest approaches.
About 49 percent of registered voters, including Republicans and Democrats, said they have a favorable view of Haley, down from 59 percent in the November Winthrop poll. Although she edges out Trump in the overall favorability ratings by one point this month, her standing among Republicans alone is at 56 percent compared to his whopping 81 percent favorability rating from GOP voters in South Carolina.
In November, 71 percent of Republicans viewed Haley favorably while 77 percent said the same for Trump. His overall favorability rating at that time was 45 percent, three points below his current rating.
Dividing the voter turnout for both candidates into three main groups, the poll shows that GOP-only and evangelical likely primary voters overwhelmingly back Trump at 72 percent and 70 percent, respectively. As for independent likely primary voters, support is more evenly split between the two presidential candidates: 42 percent for Haley and 43 percent for Trump.
“Haley shows strength among Independent Likely Voters but will need to convince many more Independents who are sitting on the fence regarding participation to show up on February 24 in order to cut into Trump’s lead,” Winthrop poll director Scott Huffmon said in a statement. “Trump’s dominance among strong Republicans and self-identified Evangelicals will be hard to overcome.”
Huffmon also noted that Trump’s 36-point lead grew by ten points in a few short weeks after a Monmouth University/Washington Post poll of South Carolina voters released in late January had him ahead by 26 points.
Outside of the polls, Haley isn’t gaining enough votes to beat Trump in the primaries.
She received 19 percent of the Iowa caucus vote and 43 percent of the New Hampshire primary vote last month. Even more notably, Haley gained 30 percent in the state-run Nevada primary on February 6 but lost to the “none of these candidates” option. Two days later, Trump won the Nevada caucus vote by 99 percent after Haley skipped the Nevada Republican Party’s nominating contest.
Trump and Haley will compete next in the South Carolina Republican primary on February 24, ten days before Super Tuesday. Haley has indicated she plans on staying in the race until then.
The latest Winthrop poll was conducted from February 2-10 among 1,717 registered voters in South Carolina, 749 of whom said they will likely vote in the Republican primary next weekend. The margins of error are 2.4 percentage points for the full poll and 3.6 percentage points for likely primary voters.