It was no cliffhanger.

Donald Trump was all the time going to win the South Carolina primary, it was merely a matter of margin – margin of victory and margin of Republican shift.

This consequence strikes the get together’s centre of gravity but additional, from conventional to Trump.

It strengthens his standing as Republican nominee-in-waiting, as a motion waits for Nikki Haley’s subsequent transfer.

She has pledged to battle on – “I’m a woman of my word” – however the query is: for a way lengthy?

Before this major, her recreation plan had been to get so far as ‘Super Tuesday’, the 5 March when the outcomes of 16 states are declared and candidates can safe most ‘single-day’ get together assist.

In concept, Super Tuesday can flip the competition on its axis.

Team Haley’s bother is there was nothing tremendous about Saturday in South Carolina, her residence state, to counsel a successful trajectory.

They will assess what this consequence says about her longer-term prospects and so will monetary backers ceaselessly pondering when to cease writing cheques and write her off.

In a dropping race, they’ve seen motive to again the tortoise towards the hare.

Around a 3rd of Republican Party members do not assist Trump and their quantity would enhance if he’s convicted.

In these circumstances, Nikki Haley has exploited the first marketing campaign stage to outline herself as another option.

Should Donald Trump be pressured to drag out, she could be handily positioned as a last-standing different with delegate assist within the financial institution.

Her continued pursuit of the get together nomination has antagonised Republicans supporting, and resigned to, Donald Trump.

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A celebration institution rallied across the working favorite is offended by an more and more belligerent challenger writing scripts for Democrat assault advertisements however it might, likely, be placated by polls that place Nikki Haley as a greater guess to beat Joe Biden.

It is a case for Nikki Haley however not one which carries assist in successful numbers, removed from it. How far she continues is the intense query now.

If she quits earlier than the month is out, it will have been the shortest contested presidential major because the nomination course of, as we all know it, started (beating the Democratic race in 2004, which ended on 3 March).

In America’s story of the presidential race 2024, there’s a lot about South Carolina that has felt like a footnote – presumably as a result of it’s.