Nikki Haley battles steep odds and Trump taunts in home state primary

Standing before a large crowd outside a waterfront hotel in Georgetown, Nikki Haley confronted the question that many Republicans in her “sweet” home state of South Carolina – and across the country – have asked: why is she still running for president?

“I don’t care about a political future. If I did, I would have been out by now,” she said. “I’m doing this for my kids. I’m doing this for your kids and your grandkids.”

Haley is the last candidate standing between Donald Trump and the Republican nomination he expects to wrap up within weeks.

But her path forward is vanishingly thin, after successive losses to Trump in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, followed by a stinging defeat in Nevada’s non-binding Republican primary in which, despite being the only major candidate on the ballot, Haley finished a distant second to the option labeled “none of these”.

On Saturday, she is bracing for another rebuke, this time at the hands of the very Republican voters who once elevated her to the governor’s mansion. A Suffolk University/USA Today poll released this week of likely South Carolina Republican primary voters showed Trump trouncing Haley by a margin of nearly 2 to 1, 63% to 35%.

But Haley has made clear that she has no intention of conceding the nomination – not yet anyway.

Arguing that Americans deserve better than a general election contest between the 77-year-old former president facing 91 criminal indictments and Joe Biden, the deeply unpopular 81-year-old incumbent cruising to his party’s nomination, Haley is asking supporters to stand behind her long-shot bid.

“It’s not normal to pay campaign contributions towards personal court cases. It’s not normal to side with a thug over the allies who’ve worked to protect