WASHINGTON: Nikki Haley, a Republican presidential candidate, trails her former employer Donald Trump by 28 points in a recent South Carolina survey of potential GOP primary voters for 2024, but she is ahead of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Only 18 per cent of prospective GOP primary voters in South Carolina said they planned to support their former governor, while 46 per cent said they wanted Trump, according to a Monmouth University-Washington Post poll conducted on September 14.
Senator Tim Scott came in third place with 10 per cent support and DeSantis followed at 9 per cent, news reported.
Scales started tipping in Haley’s favor, who had been lagging behind in polls with single digits since February, after last month’s maiden Republican primary presidential debate. In a CNN/SSRS poll released earlier this month, Haley emerged as the only Republican presidential candidate who could beat President Joe Biden in the 2024 US elections.
Haley recently told CBS News that the party's 2024 presidential contender would be her and not Trump. “I don’t think President Trump’s going to be the nominee. I think it’s going to be me. But I will tell you that any Republican is better than what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are doing,” Haley had told ‘Face the Nation’ on CBS.
Conducted between September 6 and 11, the poll also revealed what differentiated Trump voters from other South Carolina GOP voters with close to 81 per cent of Trump voters believing that Joe Biden won the 2020 election through fraud.