After a quick win in South Carolina’s GOP primary on Saturday, former president Donald Trump gave an early victory speech in which he trained his sights on President Joe Biden, whom he predicted would be “fired” by voters in November.
“This was a little sooner than we anticipated and an even bigger win than we anticipated,” Trump said shortly after major news outlets called the race for him just after polls closed at 7 p.m.
During his speech, Trump paid almost no attention to his last remaining GOP rival, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, focusing his ire instead on Biden.
“We’re going to look at Joe Biden — look him right in the eye, ‘Joe, you’re fired. Get out, get out, Joe. You’re fired,” he said.
Trump suggested that Election Day in November may be the most important date “perhaps in the history of our country.”
He went on to say Democrats are “destroying our country,” and expressed a wish to hold Election Day earlier, going so far as to say, that “in certain countries, you’re allowed to call your Election Day. I’d say we’d do it tomorrow.”
Moments after he said he has “never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now,” attendees at his victory party booed South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican Party chair Drew McKissick, and Representative Nancy Mace (R., S.C.).
Trump previously defeated Haley in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and has collected Nevada’s delegates, though the two candidates did not have a head-to-head match there due to a quirk in the state’s nominating process.
In a speech after his New Hampshire win, Trump went on an angry tirade against Haley. She had delivered her own speech before Trump that night. “She’s doing a speech like she won, but she didn’t win, she lost,” Trump said at the time.
Haley’s camp tried to temper expectations in South Carolina ahead of Saturday’s primary, saying the campaign had its sights set on a number of upcoming open or semi-open primaries on Super Tuesday. In an open primary, voters do not have to formally register with a political party ahead of Election Day in order to vote in that party’s primary. In a semi-open primary, voters who are not affiliated with a political party can choose which party’s primary they would like to participate in.
Of 874 delegates up for grabs on March 5, nearly two-thirds are in states with open or semi-open primaries, including Texas, Maine, and Virginia. Haley’s campaign is eyeing several states that have a large contingent of college-educated voters, suburban voters, and independents, who tend to support Haley over Trump. Those states include Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia.
Haley is running ads in Michigan ahead of its February 27 primary. She’s announced state leadership teams in Vermont, Texas, Minnesota, and California and plans to traverse seven states and Washington, D.C., next week after the South Carolina primary.
And she’s making it clearer by the day that she’s not going to maneuver back into the MAGA camp to preserve a future career path.
“I feel no need to kiss the ring,” the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor said in Tuesday’s speech of the GOP front-runner, who now spends more time in courtrooms than on the campaign trail. “And I have no fear of Trump’s retribution. I’m not looking for anything from him.”