Trump pivots to race against Biden after crushing Haley in South Carolina

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Donald Trump tightened his grip on the Republican presidential nomination this weekend with a crushing 20-point victory over Nikki Haley in her home state that raised fresh questions about how much longer she can stay in the race.

However, the margin of Trump’s victory was smaller than opinion polls and many pundits had predicted, giving credence to Haley’s argument that the former president might struggle to win in a general election in November.

The Associated Press called the race for Trump almost immediately after the polls closed in South Carolina on Saturday evening. Trump won with around 60 per cent of the vote, compared to Haley on about 40 per cent.

Minutes after the race was called, Trump took to the stage at an election night party in Columbia, the state’s capital, to declare that he was shifting his focus to the general election, when he is likely to face Joe Biden. Trump made no mention of Haley and insisted he had “never seen the Republican party so unified” behind him.

The next morning, the local newspaper in Charleston pulled no punches with a front page riffing on Haley’s tagline from her two terms as governor: “It’s a great day in South Carolina.” Sunday’s headline for the Post and Courier read: “It’s a great day in South Carolina for Trump.”

“The fact that Haley lost by a solid margin shows that the Republican party of South Carolina is very much mirroring the Republican party nationally,” said Scott Huffmon, a political-science professor at Winthrop University, in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

“It has become the party of Donald Trump.”

To be sure, Trump handed Haley a blistering defeat on Saturday in a state where she was once a popular figure before leaving…