Nikki Haley Seems to be to House Turf to Problem Trump

A combative Nikki Haley introduced her presidential marketing campaign again to South Carolina on Wednesday after a disappointing defeat the evening earlier than in New Hampshire, and informed a boisterous crowd in a cavernous ballroom in North Charleston that she would combat Donald J. Trump for the Republican nomination.

“The political elites on this state and across the nation say we simply must let Donald Trump have this,” she informed her supporters, who had been jeering on the thought. “Pay attention. We’ve solely had two states which have voted. We’ve bought 48 extra.”

Nowhere is extra instantly necessary than South Carolina, the place she served two phrases as governor earlier than being tapped to function Mr. Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations. However simply because it’s her dwelling state doesn’t imply it’s pleasant territory. As Ms. Haley regarded to reinvigorate her marketing campaign right here on the bottom, Republicans, as diverse as native celebration officers and the chairwoman of the Republican Nationwide Committee, stepped up the strain on her to drop out. As she made her case for urgent on, the previous president considerably consolidated his help.

Whereas she spoke, the Trump marketing campaign blasted out a recent listing of endorsements in South Carolina that now consists of the state’s two senators, most of its Home members, its governor and lieutenant governor, and far of its State Home — greater than 150 names in all.

“Welcome dwelling to Trump Nation, Nikki,” Austin McCubbin, Mr. Trump’s South Carolina director, taunted.

A few of Ms. Haley’s closest allies and confidants on Wednesday continued to insist that Ms. Haley had met her personal expectations: She had winnowed the sphere and was now within the two-person contest she wished, with time sufficient till the first on Feb. 24 to unfold her message to a broader citizens and draw contrasts between herself and Mr. Trump.

“For these of us in South Carolina, we have now seen folks doubt her, and we have now seen her overcome these doubts,” mentioned Kim A. Wilkerson, a retired president of Financial institution of America in South Carolina and chairwoman of the board of trustees at Clemson College, Ms. Haley’s alma mater.

However these doubts gave the impression to be snowballing, and the drumbeat for her withdrawal solely grew louder.

“Republican voters have despatched a transparent message — they wish to see the G.O.P. unite round our eventual nominee, which goes to be President Donald Trump,” the Republican Social gathering chairman of Georgia, Josh McKoon, and the state’s Republican delegates wrote in a joint assertion on Wednesday. “It’s troublesome to see how Ambassador Haley can safe the nomination.”

Even the chief strategist for Ms. Haley’s tremendous PAC, SFA Fund, Mark Harris, acknowledged on Wednesday she wanted to increase her help state by state to stay viable, with South Carolina the following massive goal.

“We’ve got to do higher with Republicans; we have now to do higher with conservatives,” he mentioned Wednesday. “We positively should develop in these key demographics to supply us a practical path to the nomination.”

Mr. Harris mentioned Ms. Haley and her tremendous PAC can be within the race for the lengthy haul. He pointed to the 17 Republican delegates she has amassed with the second-place end in New Hampshire and third-place end in Iowa. Till later within the course of when the winner of most states will take all of that state’s delegates, Ms. Haley can proceed to bolster her delegate rely, giving her leverage to say the nomination if circumstances, comparable to a legal conviction on any of the 91 felony counts he faces, chase Mr. Trump from the race.

However Republicans in South Carolina and throughout the nation frightened that the technique would solely anger Mr. Trump and his supporters, successfully disqualifying her from consideration — this yr or sooner or later.

Donors who don’t get in line may additionally discover themselves at odds with Mr. Trump. In a submit on Reality Social on Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump vowed: “Anyone that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain” — Mr. Trump’s nickname for Ms. Haley — “from this second forth, will probably be completely barred from the MAGA camp.”

Chad Connelly, a former South Carolina Republican Social gathering chairman who has stayed impartial within the race, was open about his concern: “Nikki is nicely preferred right here, and Trump is cherished,” he mentioned. “He’s going to roll her.”

Historical past would inform Ms. Haley that the weeks earlier than South Carolina Republicans vote may be tough. After Senator John McCain of Arizona gained the New Hampshire main in 2000, he swept into South Carolina, predicting the state’s open main would deliver Democrats and independents streaming to his trigger. As an alternative, a whisper marketing campaign by supporters of George W. Bush, the Texas governor then, spoke darkly and falsely of a Black daughter fathered by Mr. McCain out of wedlock. (He and his spouse had adopted a daughter from an orphanage in Bangladesh.)

Mr. McCain’s defeat in South Carolina put Mr. Bush again on observe to win the nomination.

Mr. Trump on Tuesday evening hinted at a brutal marketing campaign to come back.

“Just a bit word to Nikki,” he mentioned at his victory speech, as he mocked Ms. Haley’s costume. “She’s not going to win. But when she did, she can be underneath investigation by these folks in quarter-hour, and I may inform you 5 explanation why already.”

Hollis Felkel, a veteran Republican political advisor in South Carolina who labored for the Bush marketing campaign in 2000 and goes by Chip, mentioned Trump supporters had been already working to get as many state legislators and senators within the former president’s column — and letting lawmakers know there’s a listing of those that aren’t. The soiled methods of the 2000 marketing campaign weren’t precisely “the stuff of legends,” he mentioned, however they had been “fairly unhealthy.”

“Now we’re coping with an entire different stage of vitriol, and politics have gotten exponentially extra ugly” since 2000, he mentioned. “She’s going to get hit from all sides with each innuendo and with each grudge that is still from when she was governor.”

Over the previous few days, on-line influencers with shut ties to the Trump marketing campaign have begun posting misogynistic, extremely sexualized movies and pictures of Ms. Haley on social media. One of many movies, produced by a bunch referred to as the Dilley Meme Group, makes use of “deep faux” expertise to place the sexual innuendo in her personal voice. A second, launched as New Hampshire voters had been nonetheless on the polls on Tuesday, brings up allegations of marital affairs that she has persistently denied however have dogged her since she was governor.

“The folks of South Carolina are so a lot better than the politics of South Carolina,” Olivia Perez-Cubas, a Haley marketing campaign spokeswoman, mentioned. “Nikki Haley has confirmed she fights and wins for the folks, it doesn’t matter what type of rubbish will get thrown at her from the political class.”

And Ms. Haley stepped up her personal assaults on Mr. Trump’s psychological colleges, his age and his braveness.

“Get on a debate stage and let’s go,” she mentioned at her rally. ”Convey it, Donald, present me what you’ve bought.”

On Wednesday morning, she delivered her commonplace stump speech through Zoom to the Republican Social gathering of the U.S. Virgin Islands, the place caucuses are scheduled for Feb. 8.

The Haley marketing campaign posted two commercials in South Carolina media markets, the primary hitting Mr. Trump and President Biden as “a rematch nobody desires,” the second extolling her report as governor.

Meantime, the work of elevating cash to maintain the marketing campaign going in opposition to a tide of endorsements for Mr. Trump continued apace. A serious fund-raiser in New York Metropolis is deliberate for Jan. 30, whose co-hosts embrace the billionaire financier Kenneth G. Langone and the traders Henry Kravis and Stanley Druckenmiller. One other is on faucet for Houston shortly thereafter.

Privately, nevertheless, her backers are dividing into two camps, in keeping with donors, fund-raisers and donor advisers who primarily spoke on the situation of anonymity to explain personal conversations. First there are those that are dutifully fulfilling obligations to fund-raising efforts, regardless of believing that Mr. Trump’s nomination is all however assured and that she is going to doubtless again out inside weeks.

And there are these — primarily donors whose resistance to Mr. Trump is absolute — who’re nonetheless all in, believing that Ms. Haley wants the monetary assets to wrest the nomination from Mr. Trump, or not less than to maintain her marketing campaign alive within the occasion that one thing befalls him.

“Simply maintain her on this race,” mentioned Fred Zeidman, a Texas businessman and considered one of Ms. Haley’s strongest backers. “She is the final one standing.”

As for her tremendous PAC, Mr. Harris mentioned he consulted with its largest backers after the New Hampshire loss. “They’re jazzed up, and we absolutely imagine we’ll have the assets we want,” he mentioned.

Timothy C. Draper, a enterprise capital investor and early Haley backer who has been a significant contributor to the PAC, mentioned in an e-mail Wednesday that “Democratic girls who will doubtless vote for Nikki must register Republican now to deliver her sufficient delegates to win the first.”

Mr. Draper’s perspective will get at a dynamic many donors identified on Wednesday — Ms. Haley is working within the Republican main, however in some methods is performing as a third-party candidate, drawing help from each side. This bodes poorly for Ms. Haley, nevertheless it additionally suggests weaknesses for each Mr. Trump and President Biden.

“There are every kind of warning indicators for Trump,” mentioned Eric Levine, a New York lawyer who’s co-hosting the Jan. 30 fund-raiser. “He polled very poorly, very poorly, with independents and average Republicans. These are the very voters he’s going to want to win the swing states.”

However after New Hampshire, Ms. Haley’s underdog marketing campaign could also be on life help. Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican Nationwide Committee, urged the celebration “to unite round our eventual nominee, which is Donald Trump.” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, endorsed him, as did Senators John Kennedy of Louisiana and Deb Fischer of Nebraska.

Pete Hoekstra, the celebration chairman of Michigan, the place the Haley marketing campaign has set its sights after South Carolina, additionally backed Mr. Trump and mentioned in an announcement, “we will begin to focus our efforts on BEATING Joe Biden, reasonably than in-party preventing.”

A Democratic state consultant in South Carolina, J.A. Moore, mentioned he wished Ms. Haley to remain within the race and sharpen her assaults on Mr. Trump, until she would drop out and endorse Mr. Biden.

However, he warned, “She’s going to get creamed right here.”

Ken Bensinger and Jazmine Ulloa contributed reporting.