Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has vowed not to quit her pursuit of the 2024 GOP presidential ticket after losing the New Hampshire Primary and Iowa Caucus to frontrunner Donald Trump. (No modern candidate who has lost both has ever secured the nomination.) The next GOP primary takes place in her home state of South Carolina on February 24.
South Carolina is an open primary state, which means residents can vote in either the Democratic primary (February 3) or the Republican primary (February 24) — they can not vote in both.
CNN political analyst and former South Carolina State Representative Bakari Sellers (2006-2014) wrote on X: “Stop saying South Carolina is an open primary state as some advantage for Nikki. It’s open but S.C. Dems ain’t showing up for her.”
Note: Sellers, who is Black, is the author of My Vanishing Country, a memoir about his childhood in rural South Carolina and “how two high-profile incidents of racial violence — the Orangeburg Massacre of 1968 and the Charleston Church Massacre of 2015 — have impacted his life and his work.” Haley was Governor at the time of the latter.
This is all truth… SC Democrats know Nikki Haley very well & as the former chair of the state Democratic party, I can tell you that we haven’t forgotten her voter suppressing, abortion banning, Medicaid expansion blocking, union busting, rural hospital closing, confederate flag… https://t.co/cBAObPcyRq
— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime) January 24, 2024
Jaime Harrison, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, replied: “This is all truth… SC Democrats know Nikki Haley very well & as the former chair of the state Democratic party, I can tell you that we haven’t forgotten her voter suppressing, abortion banning, Medicaid expansion blocking, union busting, rural hospital closing, confederate flag apologizing leadership. So not a no, but a Hell No!”
Note: Harrison, who is also Black, served as the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party from 2013 to 2017, a stint occuring during Haley’s tenure as governor (2011 to 2017). Harrison unsuccessfully ran against incumbent Senator Lindsey Graham for the South Carolina U.S. Senate seat in the 2020 election.
