South Carolina Republican primary: when to expect results and what they can tell us

South Carolina Republicans will pick their candidate for president Saturday in the “first in the South” primary. Former president Donald Trump faces his former UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, on her home turf in a state that makes or breaks Republican candidacies. Haley has outlasted Trump’s other primary competitors and will make a stand in the state she served as governor for six years, but polling suggests she’s likely to be blown out.

South Carolina’s Democrats voted two weeks ago, giving president Joe Biden 96% of their votes in what increasingly appears to be a coronation parade to the nomination.

Here is everything you need to know about the South Carolina primary:

Polls open Saturday at 7am ET and remain open until 7pm ET. Notably, more than 140,000 voters have already cast ballots in the Republican primary, either through early voting or as absentees. Results will begin coming in shortly after the polls close. Five out of six votes were counted within two hours of the polls closing in 2016.

The Guardian will have several reporters on the ground in South Carolina on Saturday, and our live blog will share results and analysis as polls close.

South Carolina’s Republican primary electorate is usually more than twice as large as New Hampshire’s. This year may be different. New Hampshire broke records for Republican turnout, even though the field had been whittled down to Trump, Haley and Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, who dropped out after a third-place showing. The relative lack of competitiveness may lead voters to believe the race has already been decided, a perception Haley has been fighting against with every campaign stop.

South Carolina’s open primary system allows any registered voter to participate in any party’s