Supporters who turned out to vote for her were nonetheless hopeful that she would at least stay in the race long enough to narrow the gap with the former president, and continue to be a voice for conservatives who do not subscribe to Trump’s views.

Maryanne Belsei said she voted for Haley because she feels “strongly about female representation in our government and I feel strongly about what she represents for the future of our country”.

“I want her to stay involved and continue to be that voice, pushing people to answer for some of their behaviour in the past, and the stances that they’re taking going forward,” she said.

Another voter, Joel, did not want his surname used, explaining that “things are touchy enough” in the US when it comes to pro and anti-Trump supporters.

He, too, voted for Haley, partly because she was a good governor in South Carolina – the job she had before Trump recruited her to be his UN ambassador – “but a deeper motive is to keep Trump from destroying Western civilisation”, he added.

Asked to explain the former president’s popularity, Joel shrugged and shook his head.

“It’s like this voodoo blindness has come over the otherwise sane people that I know, and I don’t understand it,” he said.

Others, like James Slavagna, said he supported Trump because he believed “the streets would be safer and cleaner” and “there would be more jobs and infrastructure” if the former president returned to office.

“We have an office right now that is an embarrassment to the country,” he said of the Biden administration.

This primary race comes weeks after Joe Biden won the Democrat race in South Carolina in a landslide, in the absence of any serious challengers. However, that contest was marred by exceedingly low turnout, with only about 131,000 South Carolinians voting, making up about 4 per cent of registered voters statewide.

Crowds seemed much longer at many polling booths for the Republican race, in which any registered voter could take part, as long as they did not vote earlier in Biden’s primary.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, who has endorsed Trump, said it was possible Democrats could use the state’s “open primary” system to “cause mischief” by voting for Haley to thwart the former president’s momentum.

“We’ll see if that materialises today,” he said as he voted at a polling booth a few kilometres from the State House.

Trump began the day giving an hour-plus speech in Washington, DC at the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, where he mocked Biden’s mental acuity, talked up his immigration plan to undertake the biggest mass deportation program in history, and described himself as a proud political dissident.

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“I’ve been indicted more than Alfonse Capone!” he told the crowd. “I got indicted four times by this gang of thugs for nothing. Or, as I say respectfully to the people from foreign countries, for bullshit.”

He will head to South Carolina later today to attend an election night watch party in Columbia, while Haley’s watch party will be in Charleston.