‘Trump Country’ or ‘Haley Country’? Early Voting Underway in South Carolina

We’re calling it: the earliest early voting totals reveal that South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary has already attracted many more participants than the Democratic primary earlier this month, and not by a small margin.

It’s a sign, albeit an unsurprising one, that even as former President Donald J. Trump’s lead mounts, his race against former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is still of greater interest than incumbent President Joe Biden’s mostly unchallenged attempt at being renominated.

But outside Wando Mount Pleasant Library, an early voting site near Charleston, on Feb. 17, even Ms. Haley’s supporters were pessimistic about her chances in a state she once governed.

Trey Bryant, a Haley voter from Mount Pleasant, did not equivocate when asked if he thinks she could win his state: “No, I don’t.”

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“People are in good humor,” said Kate Everingham, the site manager for the early voting site and a representative for the Charleston County Board of Elections, in an interview with The Epoch Times.

On the afternoon of Feb. 17, a steady stream of voters bustled in and out, mixed with families checking out books and older adults commenting on a screening of a new Metropolitan Opera production of Georges Bizet’s “Carmen.”

Robert Gair, another Haley voter from Mount Pleasant, told The Epoch Times he happened to cast a ballot because he was there to see the opera.

He said he would never vote for President Trump, calling him a “criminal.” A hypothetical choice between President Biden and Ms. Haley was, in his judgement, “a tossup.”

The upscale, Sun Belt suburban atmosphere, complete with an abundance of golf courses and snowbirds, feels like something out of the early 2000s, right down to the greater affinity for Bush-Cheney conservatism. Rightly or wrongly, Ms. Haley is cast as the avatar of that Republican Party. President Trump, despite his ownership of actual golf courses and relocation to Florida from New York, is seen by many as the face of a more rural and blue-collar party, strong in the Piedmont and other places far from Charleston: Middle America’s “Trump Country.”

Mr. Bryant, the Haley voter, didn’t disagree that Mount Pleasant was closer to “Haley Country” than other parts of the state.

But Debbie, a Trump voter who would not provide her last name, saw it differently.

“All of our neighbors are Trumpers,” she told The Epoch Times.

The Epoch Times encountered voters for Ms. Haley and for President Trump, but the turnout for the former governor appeared to be stronger, at least here. The full picture here and elsewhere in South Carolina won’t be clear until primary day, and maybe even after.

Tactical Voting to Undermine Trump

South Carolina has an open primary and does not register voters by political party. South Carolinians who typically favor Democrats can easily vote in the state’s Republican presidential primary—and vice-versa.

It all creates the conditions for significant tactical crossover by Democrats or anti-Trump independents against the former president. Yet, the 2020 example suggests crossover voting has its limits.

In Mount Pleasant, a few early voters made it clear they were choosing Ms. Haley in order to undermine President Trump and would prefer President Biden to her in a head-to-head matchup.

One was Sue Teschner, a tax attorney from Mount Pleasant, who said she would vote for President Biden over Ms. Haley and “a coat hanger over Trump.” But her husband, a retired boat yard owner, is a Trump supporter.

“It’s been an interesting seven years, eight years,” she told The Epoch Times.

The Mais were another purplish pairing. Like many now voting in South Carolina, they came from someplace colder and bluer. In their case, it was Connecticut.

Both voted for Ms. Haley.

“I just wanted to have wanted to have a different choice than the two that are currently most popular,” Mr. Mai explained.

But while he characterized himself as “more libertarian-leaning than conservative,” Katie Mai, standing beside him, said she is “not on the same political spectrum” as Mr. Mai.

“I came out because I think Donald Trump’s dangerous,” she said. “I would never vote for a Republican under any other circumstances.”

The state introduced its early voting system through a 2022 bill, Act 150. This year marks the first presidential primary season in South Carolina in which it is an option. Before that, voters who hoped to cast their ballots early had a much longer in-person absentee ballot period, lasting about a month as opposed to roughly two weeks for early voting.

Ms. Everingham, an elections veteran, recalled that the old system entailed multiple, complex “rules and regulations.”

By contrast, “early voting is available to every eligible registered voter.” (South Carolina does not have same-day voter registration.)

“You had to sign a form to say why you were voting absentee. Here, there’s nothing like that at all,” Ms. Everingham added when contrasting the old and new systems.

Trump Backers in State Encourage Early Voting

President Trump is not short on endorsements from the upper ranks of South Carolina politics. Some of those high-profile supporters drew attention to the start of early voting on Feb. 12, reinforcing the perception that the state is President Trump’s to lose.

“I think she [Ms. Haley] could remake the Republican Party into something I could be proud of again,” Capt. Eric Oser (ret.), a former nuclear submarine commander, told The Epoch Times at a Feb. 4 Haley event in Charleston.

In his view, President Trump “has no strategy and not an inkling of how to govern other than by executive orders.”

Katie, a woman at a Haley rally in Hilton Head, speculated to The Epoch Times that there may be numerous shy Haley voters—men and women who plan on backing the former United Nations ambassador but who are quiet about it because of President Trump’s strong popularity among many other voters.

It is possible the voters outside Mount Pleasant’s library are more typical than they seem and that there are, or will be, more Haley voters than polling suggests. For one thing, and as noted previously, turnout in the Democratic presidential primary wasn’t high. President Trump also elicits a strong and highly personal reaction from many voters.

Ms. Haley could not overcome Trump support in New Hampshire, a bluer northeastern state that saw many independent voters go for her. The deep-red Palmetto State would be an even tougher battleground.

The scale and intensity of a Feb. 10 Trump rally in Conway, South Carolina, reflects the great enthusiasm for the former president in South Carolina’s reddest corners.

President Trump received over 55 percent of South Carolina’s vote in the 2020 presidential contest. In Horry County, where Conway is located, the former president received over 66 percent of the vote—about two-thirds of the total as against 32.9 percent for President Biden.

Eighty miles up the coast from the suburbs of Charleston, the “Trump Country” feel in Conway was hard to deny. The line to get into the Conway event stretched for roughly half a mile.

“I’m 84 years old, and he thinks like me,” Trump supporter Rod Smith of Surfside Beach said of the man he intends to back.

Verd Odom, who represents District 6 in Marlboro County, South Carolina’s County Council, described his district as a “Donald Trump district.”

“People in South Carolina just do not have a good rapport with her [Nikki Haley],” he told The Epoch Times.

Outside the Mount Pleasant library on Feb. 17, Trump voters Ray and Debbie agreed that Ms. Haley doesn’t have a path forward in her quest for the nomination. But Ray, an older man with a gentle Southern accent, had an olive branch.

“She may have a future in some other office,” he said.

Joseph Lord contributed to this report.