Loading

As she gave her standard campaign speech, criticising Trump for running up a federal deficit, one rally goer bellowed, “He cannot win a general election. It’s madness.” That prompted agreement from Haley, who argues that she can deny Biden a second term, but Trump won’t be able to.

While campaigning as an avowed conservative, Haley has tended to perform better among more moderate and independent-leaning voters.

Four in 10 Haley supporters in South Carolina’s Republican primary were self-described moderates, compared with 15 per cent for Trump, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 2400 voters taking part in the Republican primary in South Carolina, conducted for AP by NORC at the University of Chicago.

On the other hand, eight in 10 Trump supporters identified as conservatives, compared to about half of Haley’s backers.

Loading

Trump won an uncontested DC primary during his 2020 reelection bid but placed a distant third four years earlier behind Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and former Ohio governor John Kasich.

Rubio’s win was one of only three in his unsuccessful 2016 bid. Other more centrist Republicans, including Mitt Romney and John McCain, won the city’s primaries in 2012 and 2008 on their way to winning the Republican nomination.

AP

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.