Donald Trump won South Carolina's Republican primary on Saturday, defeating former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley in her home state and solidifying his route to a third consecutive Republican candidacy, news agency Associated Press (AP) reported. Trump has now won every election involving Republican delegates, including Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and the United States Virgin Islands. The former president's recent triumph is expected to raise pressure on Haley, Trump's former UN envoy and South Carolina governor from 2011 to 2017, to drop out of the race.
A 2020 general election rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden is becoming probable.
Haley has promised to stay in the race until at least the batch of primaries on March 5, known as Super Tuesday, but she has been unable to disrupt Trump's momentum in her own state, despite attending many more campaign events and saying that Trump's indictments will handicap him versus Biden.
South Carolina's first-in-the-South primary has long been a dependable predictor for Republicans. In all but one primary since 1980, the Republican winner in South Carolina has gone on to become the party's candidate. The one exception was Newt Gingrich in 2012.
Haley stated in recent days that she will travel directly to Michigan for the state's Tuesday primary, the final big fight before Super Tuesday. She is asked where she could be able to win a contest or compete.
Trump and Biden are already behaving as if they want to square off in November.
Trump and his backers claim that Biden has made the United States weaker, citing the messy exit from Afghanistan and Russia's choice to begin a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Trump has also regularly criticised Biden for rising inflation early in his presidency, as well as his handling of record-breaking migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border.
Trump has questioned, often in starkly personal terms, whether Biden, 81, is too elderly to serve a second term. Biden's team, in turn, has emphasized the 77-year-old Trump's own gaffes on the campaign road.
Biden's recent fundraising visits throughout the country have increased, and he has become more blunt in his criticism of Trump.