Haley is staying in race despite Trump’s easy win in South Carolina

By Thomas Beaumont and Meg Kinnard | Associated Press

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley says it’s not “the end of our story” despite Donald Trump’s easy primary victory in South Carolina, her home state where the onetime governor had long suggested her competitiveness with the former president would show.

Defying calls from South Carolina Republicans to exit the race, Haley planned to travel Sunday to Michigan, which holds its primary on Tuesday.

With his win Saturday in the first-in-the South contest, Trump has now swept every primary or caucus on the GOP early-season calendar that awards delegates. His performances have left little maneuvering room for Haley, his former U.N. ambassador.

“I have never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now,” Trump said in a victory night celebration in Columbia.

Haley insist she is sticking around even with the growing pressure to abandon her candidacy and let Trump focus entirely on Democratic President Joe Biden, in a 2020 rematch.

In addition to the rally in vote-rich Oakland County, Michigan, northwest of Detroit on Sunday evening, she scheduled a Monday event in Grand Rapids, a western Michigan Republican hub.

“I’m grateful that today is not the end of our story,” Haley told supporters Saturday. “We’ll keep fighting for America and we won’t rest until America wins.”

South Carolina’s most prominent Republicans stood with Trump, including U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, who endorsed him this past week.

To U.S. Rep. Russell Fry, “this has always been a primary in name only” and that Trump was never in jeopardy of losing to Haley. Fry said Trump would be the GOP nominee and the latest election results were “just further validation of that.”

That sentiment is not endorsed by all voters in South Carolina.