Steve Kornacki: Nikki Haley’s home-field disadvantage? Republican voters

The story of Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign so far is simple enough. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, she performed best among the independents and Democrats who crossed over to participate in the GOP contest. But that strength was overwhelmed by the large deficits she faced in both states with actual Republican voters, resulting in double-digit losses.

As the primary calendar turns to Haley’s home state of South Carolina this Saturday, Haley’s math problem isn’t going to get much easier to solve.

Despite her favorite daughter status, polling puts her far behind Donald Trump in the state, with no indication that she’s made any new inroads with core Republican voters. This means that Haley’s hopes for an upset victory — which she probably needs to maintain any plausibility as a candidate — will rest on her ability to attract support from non-Republicans and to turn them out at levels never before seen in a South Carolina primary.

To put her challenge in perspective, take a look at the breakdown of South Carolina GOP primary electorates this century (and note that the state doesn’t register voters by party, meaning that anyone can participate in the GOP contest and that the figures below reflect how voters identified their own partisan loyalties in past exit polls):

As you can see, the share of self-identified Republicans has ranged from just over 60% to as high as 80%. By comparison, self-identified Republicans in the New Hampshire GOP primary last month accounted for barely 50% of the electorate. So, barring an unforeseen surge of these voters, Haley will probably need this number to plummet to an all-time low on Saturday, which would reduce the clout of a voting bloc that appears rather hostile to her.

This would