Special coverage: South Carolina Republican presidential primary
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A very happy political Saturday night, everyone. Welcome to our very special coverage of the South Carolina Republican primary. I'm Chris Hayes. I'm joined tonight by my colleague Rachel Maddow and my colleague Joy Reid. And then here with me at this table here, Lawrence O'Donnell, Stephanie Rule, Alex Wagner and Ari Malbert. We got the whole gang together across several different locations. Pull

Polls will close in South Carolina in just about half an hour at 7 Eastern. Coming up, we're going to hear from Steve Kornacki at, of course, the big board. We will also hear from South Carolina voters out in the field. And there's a lot to get to over the next few hours in what has been a crazy last 48 hours of news.

This Republican primary tonight, of course, brings us back to the home state of one Nikki Haley, where she was twice elected governor, had high approval ratings as such. It also brings us to the moment when Donald Trump hopes to basically end this thing, to close the raise out and consolidate his control officially and finally of the Republican Party.

A decade has passed since Haley last ran for anything at South Carolina, which is, in the politics that we live in, long enough for lots to change. The state electorate, for one, has changed. It's long enough to put her behind Trump in the polls consistently by double digits.

That said, South Carolina is an open primary. It means you do not need to be a registered Republican in order to cast a ballot. So one of the things we will be watching for tonight, among many, is how much support Haley pulls from independent Democratic-leading voters as, again, a possible early sign of how she might fare as the nominee, were she to become one in a general election.

Even though Trump declared this week that Haley's bid for the nomination will end here tonight, Haley has made it very clear, insistently and consistently, that she will stay in the race no matter what. She has booked campaign appearances. She's named a leadership team for the primary that comes up right in a few days in Michigan coming this Tuesday.

It's a big night for politics. We are always so happy to have you joining us. And I want to start with Rachel, who we're very badly missing here in the studio for what is an admittedly unusual Saturday primary night for us. How are you, Rachel?

I am all right. I mean, I'm in a virologically unusual situation as well. I got COVID for the first time in October, and then I got COVID for the second time this week. So I'm fine. I'm taking Paxlovid. I'm getting better.

I just started testing negative within the last few hours. So I think I'm coming out of it. But anyway, I thought to be safe, I would spare you all from having to breathe my exhale for the next few hours. But listen, South Carolina primary is...

historically, over the course of our adult lives, Chris, Republicans tend to know who they want their nominee to be by the time they get to South Carolina. The winner of the South Carolina primary basically always wins the Republican presidential nomination. That...

it just feels like kind of beside the point right now in terms of what's going on between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump. There's Donald Trump in the Republican Party. There's a whole bunch of people auditioning to be his vice president. Nikki Haley is essentially auditioning not to be his vice president, but to be his understudy.

Right. Like he's very incoherent on the on the stump right now. His speeches are getting weirder and harder to follow. He's getting more and more extreme. His legal liability is legal jeopardy. The consequences of his legal entanglements are getting more and more extreme and more honestly worrying in terms of what that might mean for somebody who might be holding the presidency.

All of this stuff is kind of closing in on Trump. And I think Nikki Haley has decided, listen, this is a humiliating thing and I'm never going to be his running mate if he's the nominee. But somebody ought to be standing there knowing the lines and able to step in with a functioning funded campaign in case one of these meteors that keeps hitting Trump actually knocks him out.

So it does feel like an understudy race. There does feel like there's some dynamism tonight. Maybe Haley can do a little bit of what she did in New Hampshire, where she got within 11 points of him, pull something together with Democrats and independent voters like she has in the past. Maybe her home state, you know, favorability will help her here. But, you know, that's sort of dynamism on the edges. The big question is what's going to happen to the prohibitive front row.

Yeah, and we've got some news tonight, which we'll get to in a little bit, of some interesting things happening at the RNC. To your point, Rachel, about exactly this. One of the sort of a long and kind of storied Republican member of the Republican National Committee, Haley Barber, trying to kind of pump some brakes here and basically make sure that that understudy position stays in place. We're going to get to that a little bit later. Let's go over, of course, to Steve Kornacki, who is at the big board.

So what are you watching for tonight? And as you dig into the exit polls, which have been coming out in the last hour or so, what are you seeing early on? Yeah, a couple of things here. You see the map is blank right now, but that'll be changing less than a half an hour from now. You do expect within minutes of the polls closing, they have a lot of early vote. They've been counting it up before the poll closed. So that usually gets reported out first. So look for that within a few minutes of

that poll closing time at 7 o'clock. You mentioned the exit polls, what we're looking at right here. Call them up on the screen here. There's going to be three waves of data that come in. All day, we've had folks out in the field interviewing people, leaving the polls, just getting a bigger and bigger pool of voters. So that process is still ongoing as the polls stay open now. But we're going to show you the first sort of compilation of what's been conducted so far. These number

can change a little bit, but it's like that Polaroid photo. It's coming into focus what this electorate looks like today. And I think there's two things to go right in on here. The first is this, the big question. You mentioned this as well. The party ID, this is an open primary. Anybody, as long as they didn't vote in that Democratic primary three weeks ago, which only 130,000 people did, anybody else who's registered can vote. So the question we ask in the exit poll is, are

you do you think of yourself as a Republican an independent a Democrat and you see 69% here call themselves Republicans 21% independents 4% Democrats 6% say something else of course you know so much of this primary has been about Nikki Haley running up massive margins with independents especially huge numbers with Democrats when they're able to participate but Donald Trump

dominating among Republicans. So that's why people are so interested in this question. You add up the non-Republican share here in our exit poll, it's 31% compared to 69% Republican. That's what we're seeing in our exit poll. Two points of reference on this. A month ago, New Hampshire, remember we talked about

Haley, just running up the score with independents and even Democrats. Well, that electorate in New Hampshire was 50 percent non-Republican. It was 50-50 electorate, 50 percent non-Republican. Tonight in this exit poll, we're seeing 31 in South Carolina. The other point of reference is a historical one. What is the all time high in terms of the share of a Republican primary electorate?

In South Carolina, that's not Republicans. The answer is the year 2000. George W. Bush, John McCain, McCain, like Haley now, big appeal to independence and to Democrats. Bush more with Republicans. The number in 2000, the all time high in South Carolina, was 39 percent non-Republican.

Republican. So this number you can see right now, well short of that thirty nine. And that thirty nine was not enough for John McCain in 2000. He lost the state by 11 points to George W. Bush. So that's one thing we're seeing right now in at least this first wave of the exit polling. The second thing that we're seeing right here, I just point out to you, we look at this number as well. It's very important in Republican

and primaries, what share of this electorate calls themselves evangelical born-again Christian? It's two-thirds. It's 66%. We said the terrain gets very different demographically when we go from New Hampshire to South Carolina. How different? This number in New Hampshire was 19%.

That's one of the most secular Republican electorates in the country in New Hampshire. You go to one of the more evangelical heavy electorates. Look at that difference there. Forty seven point swing. Now, take a look at the map. As I said, it's going to start lighting up here just after seven o'clock. We think we'll start getting early vote.

ports from these counties. In a lot of these counties, the early vote will be a third, maybe more, of all of the vote. Nikki Haley, if she is going to pull off the mother of all political miracles tonight and win this state, or failing that, if she's going to have a strong showing, what's seen as a strong showing, the key for her...

Demographically, we've seen her appeal. It is to the college educated. It's to higher income. It's to suburbanites. That's both within the Republican Party and among independents and Democrats who she's trying to lure into this Republican primary. So where do you look on this map for that? Well, right here, this county where the city of Charleston is, Charleston County. This is sort of the motherlode of Republicans.

college educated, higher income suburbanite types. This is one of the only two counties in the state that Donald Trump did not carry in the 2020 general election. This is the first congressional district of South Carolina. So you've got look for Haley here. She needs to run up big numbers in Charleston County, also part of that first district right next door. This is Beaufort County. This is where Hilton Head is. Again, this is a bastion of voters who have

college degrees and also part of this district, the fast-growing suburbs of Berkeley County. Again, this is the terrain Haley really needs to run up the score in. Where else does she need to do extremely well? Well, the state capitol, Richland County, Columbia. Again, one of the highest concentrations of

of college degrees in the state. Again, among Republicans and the kind of place where she wants to be pulling in a lot of Democratic voters, a lot of independent voters. If it's going to happen for her, it's going to happen in Richland County. One other to look at is in the upstate. This county, Greenville, where the city of Greenville is, is actually going to produce probably the most votes of any county in the state tonight.

And it's a little different. Greenville County is than the rest of the upstate, a much higher concentration of college degrees right here. So, again, if Haley's having a super, super strong night, it's even going to show for her in Greenville County. Because I say Greenville is the exception in the upstate. You could basically draw a line. See your county Rock Hill here. That's right outside of Charlotte. You could just basically draw a line in this zone here in the upstate. Nine of the 10 highest concentrations of evangelical voters in the entire state.

Nine counties out of the 10 with the highest concentration of evangelicals are all in here. And this was a trouble zone for Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican primaries. That's part of this story, too. Remember, we talked about it in Iowa in 2016. Trump had struggled with evangelicals in Iowa. Eight years later, the presidency later, he had a political bond with evangelicals that

That powered him in the Iowa caucuses six weeks ago. And again, this you would look to, Trump's campaign would now look to this as a major source of strength outside of Greenville, along with his best county in the state in 2016, Horry County, fourth largest in the state, Myrtle Beach, Conway, a lot of retirees, a lot of folks they call Trump transplants, folks with conservative pro-Trump politics who have moved into the state. You would look there for it as well. And again, less than 20 minutes now, we'll actually get some results.

All right, Steve Kornacki, thank you for that. We will be back to you very shortly. Joy, let me go to you. There's two questions here we've been asking in these early primary contests from the exit polls and just wanted to get your read on these because we've talked about them a lot. I think they sort of serve as proclamations

questions in some ways. Number one, did Joe Biden legitimately win in 2020? That's one of the exit polls. Yes, gets 32 percent of the folks voting in South Carolina, according to our exit polls. No, gets 65 percent. So two thirds, one third there. And then a question about if Trump

is convicted, is he fit to be president? Should he face criminal conviction in any one of the outstanding 91 indictments he faces? You get, again, very similar numbers. Yes, he's still fit at 65. No, he's not at 32. Again, that's sort of two thirds, one third. What's your read on that?

Right. And I think that you can go back to what Steve was just saying about the makeup of this electorate. I mean, this is a what, 92 percent white, overwhelmingly evangelical Christian primary electorate in South Carolina. And I think writ large around the country, that is the way they think. I mean, even among the independent voters who are about 21 percent of this electorate, it's like almost a 50 50 question as to whether President Biden is the legitimate president of the United States.

That is what the Republican Party is now. It is a baseline condition of being a base Republican right now that you do not believe that the 2020 election was legitimate. You believe that Donald Trump is the rightful president of the United States. You believe that he's the most electable candidate that's also in these exit polls, more so than Nikki Haley, which there's no empirical data that supports that. And you believe that he should be president regardless of whether he is convicted of a felony.

which he very likely will be in the next month. I think that there's nothing new here in terms of what MAGA voters and Republican voters think. But I think because South Carolina is such a heavily white evangelical conservative state, and it's so overwhelmingly a Republican state, I was talking with somebody, uh,

from the Nikki Haley world about whether or not there was any success that Democrats may have had in getting Democratic voters to come out and vote because it is an open primary and try to vote for Nikki Haley. And their response was there are almost no Democrats in this state other than Jim Clyburn. So they're like, that wouldn't have helped at all. This is who the Republican base is right now.

Alex, one of the things that's funny about these exit polls to me always is it's not like

like have these different views on the issues and they're adding them up and then tallying like which candidate. Right. Like it's working the other way around. Right. That like the candidate choice is the sort of I feel like the dominant theme we've seen is the candidate choice, the sort of feeling of affection, loyalty, devotion to Donald Trump is the kind of causal condition that the organizing principle of everything produces the subsequent result. Yeah.

I mean, I would say from all the reporting on the ground, you hear this like the South Carolina primary was once described as a knife fight in a phone booth. That is where that I believe, according to Jonathan Martin, that's where that phrase comes from. Right. This is a place that makes campaigning a blood sport. And that has not been the case this year. And there is a lot of reporting about the kind of grudging acceptance that Trump is going to win this thing and be the nominee.

And I think we shouldn't like sort of let that lie on its own. It's a sign of a party in decline. Right. The fact that there is widespread sort of discontent generally, a feeling that Trump's mouth has gotten the party in trouble, even if they like his policies, but that nobody is actively trying to do anything about it, that they are resigned to this individual.

Having said that, as much as we talk about this electorate being composed of a group of voters that are not the bread and butter for the Haley campaign, she has not really tried to campaign the way I think someone who really wanted to win the state of South Carolina would. This is someone who did not make the outreach to the party apparatus in any kind of timely fashion. This is someone who really, I'm not going to say abandoned, but

had national aspirations and was very clear about them after her term of governor ended. And, you know, she didn't headquarter herself near Columbia. She lives on Kiowa Island. She's very much someone whose fortunes and horizons lay beyond the state. And so as she's come back to it,

You know, there is anecdotally a lot of distrust. There is a sense that she has abandoned the state and it is not the state's not going to return the favor. Well, and there's also, Lawrence, I'd be curious to get your thoughts on this, because I also think that there is an interesting thing. Another theme we've seen right with is the kind of inversion of the all politics is local of our age, which is all politics is national. Right. So the Iowa where, you know, where it's like the voters, they're expectant.

you to visit every county 10 times and come to their living room and actually know every voter, right? And Ron DeSantis tried to do that. And Donald Trump was like, no, I'm going to my civil fraud trial in New York. Like that... People don't want to meet Ron DeSantis. Well, that was also the problem. But in Nikki Haley's case, it's like there was a time in politics I feel like that's a bit bygone where...

coming to your home state would be an enormous ace in the hole that just seems to amount to nothing now. Trump erased that from our politics because Lindsey Graham dropped out of the race in 2016 so that he wouldn't lose his own state. That's the one thing you always wanted to avoid in presidential primaries is, you know, don't lose your own state, drop out beforehand if you have to. Chris, what you just did on the twisting all politics is local, which hadn't occurred to me in quite those terms.

It is perfect. All politics is Trump in the Republican Party, and that is all national. And I don't think—I think if Nikki Haley had followed Alex's playbook within South Carolina politics religiously, she wouldn't get one more endorsement or one more vote. But it was gone. You know, it was gone. Trump took it away. Lindsey Graham, you know, proved that Trump took it away.

And so and all you're left with is a party where it's not Donald Trump. It's not Lindsey Graham governor. It's not those people. The Trump voters control every single Republican official. None of them are afraid of Donald Trump. All of them are afraid of Trump voters and none of them can be elected without Trump voters.

And yet Nikki Haley seems at least somewhat to Rachel's point off the top. Right. I mean, she has gone out of her way this week in a way that I think was smart strategically to just say,

She absolutely cut off at the pass the question that I think would be, again, the normal question you would go into tonight thinking, which is you're the former governor. You're if you lose this state by double digits done. She very clearly is like, I'm staying in. You've got to think that Rachel's point about the legal exposure, which draws near every day, is a huge part of.

that. Yeah, I mean, I think everyone's right. The political tradition is you don't lose your home state. And we've seen entire campaigns work off that vector, trying to avoid that problem, as Lawrence reminded us. At the same time, Donald Trump won the Electoral College in 2016 and lost his home state of New York. Right.

Right. Because obviously no one expected the blue state to go anywhere near him. And likewise, you walk through the demography demographics and some of the other history here. South Carolina plus Trump is in plus 10 years. This isn't really fertile ground for her. And so I think she put that marker down early this week. Only she knows why with the internal polling and what Steve walked us through. They want to be ready for that. And at the end of the day, with all this said, and it's a former president and it's Trumpified.

They're still trying to kneecap later primaries. They're still trying to take over the RNC. He's still trying to put in family members in charge of the actual party apparatus before this primary is done. Why? There is some sort of fear. It doesn't mean he's likely to lose the nomination based on the delegate count we have as of this moment. But it certainly is not the attitude of a strong person who's definitely winning. It's not.

But Chris, hold on. She's not going to go to South Carolina to try to win these voters because they're hardcore Trump voters. Hardcore Trump voters aren't going to turn over. She was smarter to spend that time in New Hampshire with a Chris Sununu or in New York, which is a cash register for her. And it's Donald Trump. And she's been raising a ton of money. Correct. And it's Donald Trump, though, who wants this framed like she's going to lose her home state, like she's the home court advantage. She doesn't. OK, the two senators in South Carolina are...

are fawning over him. Joy pointed out the amount of evangelicals. You've got the mega, mega base there. And the guy virtually controls the House GOP. He is running against a woman who is an Indian-American woman, little Nikki Haley, running in a party where right now white nationalism and misogyny are running through the party. So the thought that if she doesn't show up tonight and show out and knock him between the eyes means she's a stone-cold loser, that's just not the case. Can I say one thing, though? Yep.

Go ahead. And then I want to tell the audience what a phone booth is, though. The fact that we might have glass box. We're used to going to just like we are doing a service of the Nikki Haley campaign right now by saying she could have done nothing. She could have done everything she was supposed to and it wouldn't matter.

The campaign is actively trying to change expectations, saying she might lose only by 15 points versus 30. This woman is going to lose her home state by presumably double digits. And the campaign itself is trying to diminish those expectations. She is some 131,000 Democrats voted in the Democratic primary. If she won.

wanted to make a showing and try and pull some of those Democrats in and some of those independents that do exist in the state and maybe not lose by 30 points, but 15. She could have and should have done so. Except, Rachel, to your point, that conflicts with the the prime directive, which is the understudy directive. And to remain a viable after the media or Republican nominee.

Right. And I mean, to go back to the exit poll that you mentioned at the top of this segment, Chris, I mean, I think we should also just take a step back from that and look at how much that's like Iowa. Even in a state this conservative that looks like it's going to go this big for Trump, just like Iowa did at the start of this primary contest, you've still got

a third of the electorate turning out in South Carolina tonight saying, if Trump is convicted, that's a problem for me. That might mean he's not fit to be president. And a third of the electorate saying, I live on Earth One where Joe Biden actually is the president of the United States. A

third of the people who are turning out to likely give Donald Trump a double-digit victory tonight nevertheless still have those fundamental problems with what he's offering and with his worldview. And that is a real issue to Nikki Haley's point that Donald Trump is a problematic general election candidate. That's a really, really important point because you can, I mean, the sort of proverbial glass, one-third empty,

We're two thirds full and one third empty, which is all these polls are like one third, two thirds. I want to go to Sugar Creek where South Carolina, in South Carolina, where an NBC News correspondent, Jacob Soboroff, he's in his favorite place, which is inside a polling location. Jacob, what do you see there?

you know that better than anybody, Chris, this is my happy place. And I, it's an extra happy because in South Carolina, I have to give a shout out to people here at sugar Creek, the election administrators, the rules and regulations are different throughout the country. And they've been kind enough to let us inside to watch the process. We're just minutes to go before the process, uh,

ends for the evening. And I heard Steve Kornacki talking to you all about Greenville earlier. I am in Greenville County, the most populous county in the state where some of the highest Republican voter turnout is in all of the state of South Carolina. And I'm going to come up with me. I'm going to give you a little sneak peek at what the turnout is looking like here. This is Mary Lee. Mary Lee, how's it going? Pretty good. So Mary Lee's been here all day long. And, you know, we can't talk politics inside the polling place, but what we can do is talk

turnout. And in 2016, the turnout at this location was around 1,000 people, around 45% of eligible voters at this polling place. What's the number now, Mary Lee? 847. 847 so far. And with six minutes and 30 seconds to go, that would be turnout of what?

36%. 36%. So not quite what the 2016 numbers are. And just to confirm, Mary Lee, we don't know if those are Republicans or Democrats. This primary, you can vote regardless of your affiliation if you haven't voted in the Democratic primary. Right. You can vote for either one, but only one. Okay. That's great. Well, thank you very much for everything. And before I send it back to you guys, I want to show you that

I love seeing kids with their parents when they come out to participate in the process. That's Rich. Rich is so nice to have us here. Alice is the clerk. She's going to be driving the ballots in the ballot box back to county headquarters in just a little bit. But the number one person I got to shout out is Grace. Grace is taking the votes. You've been up since 345 in the morning? In the morning, yes. Aren't you tired? Don't your feet hurt? I am worn out. She's worn out. Look what she made for everybody here. These are called, what are they called? Scotcharoos. There's

actually scotch them. And at the end of the night at a polling place, you could use a little scotch on top of a Rice Krispie treat, guys. Thank you to everybody in Sugar Creek. I'll let you guys come and put your ballot in the machine. We'll let you do your thing. Chris, everybody.

back to you all right yeah well i don't have a cooking segment i know i was gonna say i like i like the kitchen in the polling place which is a new one for me that's nbc's jacob soberoff we'll be checking uh back in with him i think we just got we're coming up on five minutes and poll closing here and steve if i'm correct there's do you have some new uh exit polling in

Yeah. So again, the way we're explaining this is there's three waves here of data just as we accumulate more and more interviews. So now we're getting numbers from that second wave. So again, it's an even more kind of complete picture of what this electorate is looking like. It hasn't really changed. I can tell you the headline is it hasn't changed really from what we saw in the first wave. So if anything, those numbers are really kind of hardening. But what I can show you are a couple more ways of looking at this electorate.

Number one here, let's take a look at the education divide, because this is huge within the Republican primary. We talked about Nikki Haley relying so much on voters with college degrees, economically upscale, suburbanite, that sort of thing. And this is obviously important in general elections, too. We talk about it all the time. So what's the breakdown in this electorate today? Forty three percent college grads. That's what we're seeing in the exit poll. By comparison, 2016, the Republican primary then remember Donald Trump won that one.

That year in the exit poll, it was 54 percent with a college degree. So this number looks like it's going to come down substantially from the last time around on the Republican side. And we don't have a graphic for this one, but I want to show you again just to illustrate how different this electorate is from the one that voted in New Hampshire a month ago. Remember that New Hampshire race? I would say it was close, but Haley probably did a little

better than expected in. We ask about ideology. Are you a liberal? Are you a moderate? Are you a conservative? So what we see here in the exit poll in South Carolina is liberal is three percent. Not too surprisingly, right? Moderate is 18 percent and conservative is 79 percent. That's what we're seeing in South Carolina. Now, compare that to New Hampshire last month. Different story. Right. In New Hampshire, the conservative number was 67 percent.

The moderate number by comparison was up to 28, 27%. And, um,

This was six percent for the for the liberals. So you can see a less conservative electorate in New Hampshire, more conservative in South Carolina. As we said, much more evangelical, even relative to past South Carolina primaries. It looks like a higher concentration of voters without college degrees. So those are some of the things, again, as this is now second wave data we're talking about here. So these numbers are really kind of settling. We'll have one more wave, but.

Before that, the polls are going to close in less than three minutes. We've got three minutes, Rachel. Let me come to you quickly. And just if you're anticipating how these two candidates sort of play this evening, precisely because their sort of expectations are what they are. And because Haley says, I'm not getting out. We know Trump wants her out. Like how how you think we will see the candidates react to tonight's results? Well, I just think it makes it important. I mean, we'll be seeing Trump presumably give a victory speech. And those are always important.

You know, like you never really know whether it's going to seem like a victory speech or some other thing. Nikki Haley's remarks tonight, we know for sure that she has worked on them quite carefully. She gave remarks heading into the South Carolina primary saying, no matter what happens, I'm not getting out, so don't expect that. But her speech tonight in Charleston, I'm legitimately anticipating—

waiting for with a lot of anticipation. It's going to be important in terms of what she explains about what's happening in the race, how she can lose her home state by perhaps a significant margin, what still needs to happen in this race to justify her staying in and how she sees it ending. Joy, how about you? Well, you know, Nikki Haley, I think she's in an interesting position here. Yes,

She really never had a chance right in a state like this where she had some issues going in. We can talk about it another time. But, you know, she she stood up to, as she called it, the good old boys or one might call the good old boys. Even before she was running against Donald Trump, she raised a lot of hackles just in her leadership. She was a tea partier.

So she kind of came in as sort of an outsider when she was governor. And then, of course, there was the Confederate flag coming down. You know, I don't think that that has really dogged her too much in her run for president, but it is sort of the most thing she's the most known for.

So she's not really seen internally in the state as a consensus builder. All of the people who she raised to prominence, whether it's Tim Scott, who she appointed to the United States Senate before he ran, or Nancy Mace, the congresswoman she endorsed to help her get into the Congress, they're all with Trump.

So she's really almost an outsider in her own state. So what she does with what happens tonight, I don't think has a whole lot to do with her political future. No one I've talked to out of South Carolina, I've talked to a bunch of Republicans, I've been texting with them today, thinks that she has further ambitions politically. But I think to Rachel's point, she's hanging around just in case something happens that makes Trump unacceptable or he's incarcerated. So I think

what you're going to hear her try to do with this, whatever happens tonight.

is to establish for herself a separate brand that she can use outside of politics. We are now getting, of course, right down to the wire. The polls will be closing here in just under 10 seconds in the third contest. Well, sort of third contest in this Republican primary. Nevada was a complicated situation and we will get some results starting to come in.

And the polls have now closed at 7:00 PM. We are waiting to see whether we will have a call in one direction or another or a too early to call. That has been the case in a few of the contests we've had. And as you can see there, and I'm learning this as I see it on your screen myself, we do have a call. We have projected a winner at polls closing.

And that projected winner, of course, is the essential incumbent in this race, Donald Trump, the previous president before Joe Biden, the person who seems to be in a pole position for the nomination. We're making that call at 7 p.m. in about seven seconds, which suggests what we'll see start to come in when the actual data follows on. And speaking of that data, let me go back to Rachel. Your reaction to us

Our decision desk, which again, totally independent of us. We only learn about it when we see it up there on your screen. But the call that Donald Trump has emerged victorious in the South Carolina primary. Rachel, your thoughts.

A poll closing call is definitive, and it puts an exclamation point on the results, effectively. It's not a total surprise. But I think what you just said about incumbency, Chris, is important. There's never been a Republican presidential candidate who wasn't an incumbent president already

Who won Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. Only Republican incumbents have ever done that. Donald Trump technically is not running as an incumbent right now, but he has just pulled that off and his margins were double digits. Well, we don't know what the margin will be in South Carolina tonight, but with a poll closing call, I think we're all surmising that it'll likely be a double digit victory. It's just an emphatic win.

I don't think it changes the calculus for Nikki Haley because I think precisely zero people in the country expected that she might win tonight, even though it is her home state. It does, again, put a spotlight on what she's going to say in Charleston tonight when she makes remarks. If I were her, I would give the two-minute warning right now and start speaking immediately. I think as the night goes on, the results don't sink in any better for her in terms of her talking about her future tonight.

But, you know, the political calendar includes both Super Tuesday, but those dozen states includes, you know, the Michigan caucuses coming up and all the craziness that's going to happen in Michigan with two competing Michigan Republican Party chairs, both of whom called a caucus for different places. So nobody knows where to go. I mean, there's a lot of insanity still to come in the process. And it's blended that calendar together.

with the legal calendar, with the trial calendar of the man who is now the prohibitive front runner. It's there's too many weird, unprecedented variables to justify the other remaining person in the race getting out. And Rachel, I'd speak soon. Yeah. So speaking of that, that shot that we are looking at right now is the Trump victory party.

You can see Senator Tim Scott, who's one of his big sort of endorsers, validators, and we think maybe vice president nominee auditioners up there on the on the stage. He, of course, was nominated, given that job as senator first by Nikki Haley when she was the governor to fill a vacancy. We are expecting, Rachel, to your point about a little bit of a tactical advice there that Trump may come out at any moment.

Usually the way this works, again, usually, what does that mean anymore? Usually the way it works is the person who loses comes out first and the person who wins comes out second. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to just basically Bigfooter slash come out when she's already talking. Anything is possible. But you see them there. That's the Nikki Haley shot. Let's just keep eyes on that.

Control Room, keep me honest here. Steve, just so you know, as I come to you here, that we're sort of awaiting the possibility that I will cut you off and I will not be rude when doing so. But if we can just pull back the methodological curtain here for people that are watching and thinking, well, it's 7 o'clock and 7 seconds. You haven't seen any actual votes yet.

What does it mean that the decision desk has called this race? It means that the exit poll is unusually overwhelming in this case in every conceivable category. And also keep in mind, South Carolina, we have been able to monitor turnout to some degree because there is fairly extensive early voting in South Carolina. You know, probably somewhere in the order of one third, maybe more of the votes that will be tabulated will

were already cast before election day today. Just give you a sense again, we'll have counties lighting up here very shortly and it will be the early vote that's reported out first. But again, give you a look inside this exit poll at a few more. And I see Trump is there. So feel free to give me the hook here, Chris. But, um,

We could show you. This is an interesting one right here. The educate. We're talking about the education divide. OK, here it is. Those without a college degree. This is a bigger share. We told you by double digits, a bigger share of the Republican electorate than it was eight years ago. And look at this. Trump is winning it by 50 points right here. This same demographic.

Voters without a college degree in New Hampshire, Trump's margin was 36. So he's actually significantly done better with that in South Carolina. And again, the share of the electorate, the turnout of voters without a college degree as a proportion, much higher. And then look at this, a bit of a surprise among voters with a college degree. This was a strong suit for Nikki Haley. She won this group. Haley won this group in New Hampshire by 14 points in her own home state, where the

backbone of any chance she had was going to be with this type of voter, both a Republican voter, but more importantly for her, an independent, a Democrat. She wanted them to flood the polls in Charleston, around Columbia, in those metropolitan areas with big concentrations of college degrees. In our exit poll, she's losing votes.

The college vote by four points to Donald Trump. Again, that's a swing of almost 20 points from New Hampshire. And that is the heart of what she was trying to pull off. That speaks to, I think, probably a failure here of her campaign to come anywhere close to what they were aiming for in terms of getting Democrats out.

and independents motivated to cross over to vote against Trump. We saw that the exit poll question that tells it all is that only 31% of this electorate says they're not a Republican. That may seem like a high number, but the all-time high in South Carolina was 39. Haley needed it.

even higher than that, because 39 percent was the number for John McCain in 2000 when he was like Haley trying to ride to victory on Democrats and independents. He still lost by double digits when almost 40 percent of the electorate was non-Republican. Haley barely got the number over 30 percent tonight. So just every one of these categories, you're just seeing not just a win here for Trump, but but a landslide. And again, just go back to the map here.

Okay. Alex, your thoughts. Yeah. Well, this is exactly what I was talking about, basically. Right. You don't run a great campaign in the state where you were twice elected governor. You're not going to enthuse the Democrats and independents, the college educated voters that aren't already Trump voters to come out for you. And that's exactly what seems to have happened. Well,

Well, and there's this and by the way, we are at some point we're going to probably let's let's take a listen, actually, to Trump, who is speaking now at the victory party there in South Carolina. It's a record times two. And.

There's something going on in the country. Some really great things are going on. You look outside and you see all of the horror. You see millions and millions of people coming across the border illegally. We don't know where they come from. They come from jails. They come from prisons. They come from all sorts of places that we don't want to know. They come from mental institutions and insane asylums. And we don't want that in our country. We're not going to stand for it. We're not going to stand for it.

You have terrorists coming in. You have people coming in that we just can't we can't do this. No country could could sustain what's happening to the United States of America. No country. So we're going to straighten things out. The border is the worst it's ever been. You know, in 2016, we won and we had a bad border. And I talked about the border a lot, talked about it a lot.

And I said, we're going to fix it. We're going to fix it. We fixed it very quickly. And in 2020, we couldn't talk about it, although we did get millions of more votes a second time. But now there's a spirit that I have never seen. We ran two great races, but there's never been ever. There's never been a space. And I just want to say that I have never, I've never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now. Never been like this.

And a big part of that is the people standing behind me. These are the...

These are the biggest officials in South Carolina, but I say like the biggest officials in our country as far as I'm concerned. They're really, they're state figures, but they're national figures. And in the truest sense of the word, they love our country so much and they want to see our country succeed and be respected again. Right now, we're a laughingstock all over the world. Our country is going to be respected again, respected like never before. Thank you.

So this is a fantastic evening. It's an early evening and a fantastic. You can all go down and you can celebrate for about 15 minutes. And we have to get back to work because the big day, the big day, you know, Michigan's coming up. We're doing great. The auto workers are going to be with us 100 percent because they got sold out by this country.

But Michigan's up, and we're going to have a tremendous success there. And then we have a thing called Super Tuesday, and I think we're leading 91 to 7 overall.

If you don't mind, may I have the pleasure of introducing some incredible people? Because they stuck right from the beginning, from the very moment we announced. And they believe in make America great again. That's what they believe in. They believe in America first. We're putting America first. First of all, my family, Melania, Barron, Don Jr. and Kimberly, Ivanka and Jared. Thank you.

Tiffany and Michael, they're so, so supportive, so supportive of me. And we really appreciate it and love them. They're great. We have a great family and we have incredible friends. And we're going to be up here on November 5th and we're going to look at Joe Biden and we're going to look him right in the eye. He's destroying our country. And we're going to say, Joe, you're fired. Get out. Get out, Joe. You're fired.

They're destroying our country and we're gonna... I just wish we could do it quicker. Nine months is a long time. I just wish we could do it quicker, Mr. Governor. I wish we... Is there anything you can do with your vast powers to make that, you know, in certain countries, you're allowed to call your election date. If I had the right to do it, I'd do it tomorrow. I'd say, we're having an election tomorrow. Henry, is there anything you can do?

I want to start off because right from the beginning. So that's Donald Trump who just won. Well, we projected to be the winner of the South Carolina primary right at closing and went right to the microphone. Of course, we are always sort of balancing these twin imperatives as a news organization, which is that individual is likely to be one of the two major party nominees.

for the presidency and voters should see who that person is and not in a filtered and protected way. But of course, when we do that, then he says a lot of things that are untrue. For instance, he talked about

prisons, jails, mental institutions, asylums and terrorists coming over the border. He said one which is baseless, but a key point, he factually said that he fixed the border, that it had never been as bad. The record apprehensions actually happened December 2019 before COVID. He talked about the auto workers being with him. The UAW has endorsed Joe Biden. And he also said he got a million more votes in 2020, which I think was a referral to the big lie.

that he won the election, that he actually lost by 7 million votes. Chris, there's also one note for the from, I guess I would say, the Taylor Swift campaign and the conspiracy theorists who were everywhere two weeks ago saying that there was a concerted effort by the NFL to help Joe Biden become the next president standing directly behind Donald Trump. Was that Woody Johnson? Was Woody Johnson. I thought it was Woody Johnson. Woody Johnson, the owner.

of the New York Jets. I was like, I think that's Woody Johnson. He was there. He was there with Amaswami and his big, deep plans about what the NFL is up to. Tell me what Woody was doing there. Woody Johnson up there along with a bunch of South Carolina officials, including, you heard him mention the governor, Henry McMaster, who's the governor of South Carolina. Mr. Governor, because he doesn't know his name. Now, if Joe Biden...

was on a stage with a governor and said, Mr. Governor, because he couldn't at that moment think of the name, there would be headlines everywhere. And when Donald Trump was doing his initial thanks, it was to his family. And if you want to reroll the tape, you'll see him reading the notes from notes beginning with the word Melania, which he got wrong yesterday.

He called her Mercedes yesterday in his speech. So, yes, there's a presidential candidate who doesn't get his wife's name right. But you won't find out about that among the headline writers. Perhaps it would be easier to get her name right if she were standing next to him at the podium. But alas, she is not. Rachel, do you have a specific thought? I'm going to go to Joy after that about what we saw there.

I mean, again, not, you know, it was not as sort of petulant and aggrieved towards Nikki Haley as the last time he was basically not talking about her. But but it was the shtick that we all know so well.

Yes. I mean, there's all the weirdness of it. He did have to read his the names of his family members off of a off of a off of a card. He did get them all right. And it's yes, it's true. There's that there's the, you know, saying that the autoworkers are with him when, as you mentioned, the autoworkers just endorsed Joe Biden. But in terms of I mean, what else do you look for in a speech like that? He didn't go on the offensive against Haley. He talked about the repatriation.

Republican Party being unified. That is a normal thing to say. He then even tried to credit what he described as the people standing behind me, who he described as national officials, state officials. They're state officials, but they're really national. They're the most important state officials in the country. The state, it's the country. Like, what are you talking about?

about. So there's a there's a a it's not even stylistic. There's a there's a general incoherence uncle uncle ramble standards thing going on with him that doesn't get a lot of attention because the mainstream press, particularly the print press, has much more enjoyed talking about Joe Biden and the signs of his age. But Trump is rambling and incoherent even when he is at his best and even when it's early in the evening.

And tonight, even just getting that slice of it is a real reminder of that, which, again, is Nikki Haley's main message. Right. Nikki Haley's mainly arguing both Trump and Biden are unfit. You should pick me instead. Republicans don't want to pick her instead. But the manifest unfitness of Donald Trump for the basics of campaigning are on display every time he gets behind a microphone.

To that point, there was a very interesting note that he made, Joy. He popped on Truthful at one point in the aftermath of the Her report and that sort of news cycle of coverage that Lawrence just alluded to in racial as well to say, no, no, it's not that Joe Biden's too

He's incompetent, which I thought was interesting because he he seems to at least understand that being two years younger than the sitting president, two and a half years younger than the sitting president. And also that Nikki Haley's main argument, right, is that the two men are essentially in the same category, that it does not help him actually to lean into that particular argument and seemed self-aware enough to try to cut that off of the pass in that moment.

Wait, but can I just pause in a second? Did Rachel just call him Uncle Rambles? Did I hear the Uncle Rambles? I feel like I heard Uncle Rambles and I can't unhear it because I love it so much. Uncle Ramble Standing. It's a version of Grandstanding, but it's Uncle Ramble Standing. And it's a variety of rip-ram-winkling, actually, if you want to get down to it. Yeah.

When I steal that, I want you to know that in my mind I will be giving you credit, but I'm going to steal it. I'm just I'm letting you know in advance, Rachel Maddow. So, yeah, look, I think one of the other reasons Donald Trump doesn't go after Nikki Haley and doesn't go after the age thing is that that is not the purpose of him running for president. I think you always have to remember when you're hearing Donald Trump.

that the thing that motivates him most in running for president is fear. It is fear of going to prison. It is the fact that he knows that he is facing multiple felony accounts. And recall that one of the things that's happening that his campaign was screaming about earlier

is the fact that there is a member of the RNC trying to draft a resolution that would prevent the party from paying his legal bills. So he's thinking about having to pay Tish James a lot of money. He's thinking about having to pay a lot of money out in settlements, including to E. Jean Carroll. And he's thinking about staying out of jail.

How does he do that? Donald Trump only speaks to one animating feature of the Republican base, and that is demographic panic. And so that's what he leans into when he's in front of an audience of his fans. There are people coming over the border. They're coming out of insane asylums. They're coming to kill you. They're going to get here any minute unless you immediately make me president so that I don't go to jail. That is Donald Trump's core campaign message. Nothing else matters. They're

age, Nikki Haley, none of it matters. He needs to get back in prison to stay out of jail. And I wish that we could have the election tomorrow, basically. Governor, can we move that up? We are, again, our

Our decision desk, which is an incredibly rigorous place, called Donald Trump the projected winner at closing. But, you know, the actual votes count, too. And so let's and some of those are actually tangibly in the system right now. Steve, we do have some some some votes showing up on the board.

Yeah, it's a small number, but I think what's important here you're seeing is this is a pretty broad geographic swath here. And the shade of red, I don't know how these show up on the screen, but we've got two different shades of red here, Republican red. The darker one, the one that looks almost maroon, is Nikki Haley. The brighter one is Trump. You see in what's counted statewide right now, it's about a 30 point, a little bit short of a 30 point margin for Trump. And what you see is the votes that have been reported so far in all but one county are

are going for Trump. That's why these are all in his shade of red. The only exception, and we talked about this at the start of the show, if there's one county on this map you went into tonight saying Nikki Haley could have a shot at more than any other, it would be Charleston County. This is a very, very small number of votes here. You see just over a thousand. We'll see how this one develops over the course of the night. But, you know, otherwise you're just seeing, you know, not just Trump ahead in these counties, but you're seeing massive Trump

margins in these counties as well. Um, you know, we talked about some of these that have come in to, you know, are just one metric we were using looking at this map was looking back to the 2016 primary and saying, you know, if you add up the Donald Trump, Ted Cruz vote together from 2016, which are the most Republican counties, you know, a place like Cherokee County up here, uh, or, you know, look at this, he's at 89%. Now, again, it's just a little less than 10%, but we're seeing numbers like this across the state right now. Uh,

With the margin statewide and what we're seeing in the exit poll, the one suspenseful piece of question here as the votes come in is the rules in South Carolina are 50 delegates. If you win the statewide popular vote, you get 29 at large delegates. The other 21 are awarded by congressional districts. South Carolina's got 15.

Seven of them, three to the winner of each congressional district. Donald Trump swept them in 2016. But just take a look at the congressional district map here. We're starting to run a little bit behind the results statewide. But you see in the fifth district, in the seventh district, this was one of Trump's absolute best areas of the state. Myrtle Beach, Conway, the PD. This was one of his best areas in 2016. Continuing tonight. This is the district to watch, though.

if there is a district to watch tonight. And it is the first district, as we said, Charleston, suburbia there in Berkeley County, down by Hilton Head. Very, very small scattering in Charleston for Haley. But you see, you go up to Berkeley County, yeah, it's 2%, but there's Trump up 27 points. So if Haley had any chance at picking off a congressional district and the three delegates that come with it, it would be down here. But

the margins you're seeing right now suggest that's very unlikely to happen. And that's the other significance of these results. This was a test in a way for Haley in terms of the future of her candidacy. We already knew the odds of her actually toppling Trump and winning the Republican nomination were astronomically small coming into tonight. But

the question was, could she do enough in South Carolina to prove that in the next wave of states here, especially on Super Tuesday on March 5th, there was a path to winning a couple states, picking off of several dozen maybe congressional districts, and getting some headlines that you're winning states, and hey, this is not a unanimous thing for Trump. And again, this is her home state, you know, and she had a month to campaign here, and the numbers you're seeing from across the state right here are showing you the

The core of the Haley strategy to do what I just described relies on states that allow Democrats and independents to vote, like South Carolina does. It relies on states where there's a high concentration of college-educated voters that we're talking about right here. And you're just not seeing in the exit poll and, frankly, in the returns that we're getting so far.

You're not seeing evidence that it was any kind of a flood of Democrats and independents. And if you're not seeing that in South Carolina, her home state, the state she just spent a month campaigning in, and her campaign is saying, well, we're going to pull that off in Minnesota. We're going to pull that off in Virginia, in North Carolina, in states like that. If she couldn't pull that off in South Carolina, it's hard to see her doing that at the statewide level anywhere, with the exception of

It's not technically a state, but the District of Columbia, which is a type of Republican you don't see anywhere else in America. She may be able to win the District of Columbia, but we keep an eye on the first district because if she does lose it and if she does lose it by a substantial margin, the first district was a benchmark we were using for her campaign's hopes of picking off congressional districts in a bunch of Super Tuesday states and gathering delegates that way. And again, we'll see when the returns come in. But if she's not able to do that in the first district, you could take all those districts, just about all of them off the map.

on Super Tuesday. And so this is not just a landslide loss in her home state. The implications for what her campaign was saying they were going to do over the next 10 days are kind of shattering from this. So just to reset the delegate math, which again, all of this feels a little bit

insofar as the point scoring, but delegates are what actually produce a nominee ultimately. And I just want to correct something Trump said just because, you know, I like when things are accurate. The delegate math going in tonight, I think, was 63-17, right?

And he said ninety one seven. I don't know what that's a reference to, but that's wrong. It was actually sixty one, sixty three, seventeen. And there's how many on the board tonight? So it's fifty. So if Trump does sweep every congressional district here, it'll be one thirteen to seventeen for Donald Trump. We'll go into Michigan on Tuesday. And this is a perfect example. Michigan is a state.

You know, without party registration like South Carolina, anybody can turn out and vote in that Republican primary. And the Haley campaign looks at, oh, there's big suburban areas right outside of Detroit. You know, you know, look at Oakland County, look around Ann Arbor, look in western Michigan where there's the the Dutch Reformed Church that had been so resistant to Donald Trump. But again, the strategy for Haley in Michigan is the strategy she had in South Carolina is to turn those those Democrats and into

who fit that demographic profile out and you're not seeing it right here. And then you go to Super Tuesday, you know, a week later, March 5th, between after tonight, going through Super Tuesday, there are going to be a thousand delegates awarded on the Republican side

70 percent, 700 of those 1000 delegates are in states that are either winner take all. You get 50 percent plus one of the vote. You get all the delegates or they're functionally winner take all where it's a system like South Carolina's with some at large, some congressional district. But all you have to do anywhere is get that simple 50 percent plus one majority and you get all the delegates. And on top of that, for Haley, a lot of those primaries are

closed or they're limited. California is the perfect example. It's the mother load of delegates on March 5th. There are 169 delegates in California. It's a very liberal Democratic state, but it's a Republican primary and it's closed. Republicans only. And it's winner take all for a majority. So if Trump gets 50 percent plus one in California, he gets all

of the delegates. In Texas, 161 delegates. It's a system like this. He doesn't even have to win by much to get all 161 of the lion's share. So again, this just tells you what's coming likely for Haley here. So we're coming up against the bottom of the hour here, and we're at a point that I thought we'd get to around this part of the evening because of the exit polling. I mean, again, just to keep your eyes on those numbers, I think if you asked us to predict the outcome based on the exit polling, like two-thirds, one-third seemed like a

Like those questions that we talked about when we went two third, one third seemed like a pretty decent rough proxy of where those voters are going to end up. We will keep our eyes on that. The question, I don't think to Rachel's point that kicked off the evening, which I think frames all of this, Stephanie, because you've mentioned this a few times, is not.

Is she going to get more delegates than him? It doesn't that's just not really in the cards. It's what what is she doing? And is she? No, I mean, I mean, I mean that respectfully. I mean, and she has been raising a lot of money. So what tends to happen is campaigns collapse when they can't raise money and they tend to stop being able to raise money when it becomes clear they can't win. That's usually just the sort of cascade effect.

Because of everything Rachel said at the top of the show, she's in something of a different category, which there are people with cash to give who are willing to give money to that candidate to continue a campaign to be precisely that kind of understudy. Rachel nailed it. She's running to be understudy. Right. And the people who are donating to her right now, many of them, especially in places like New York, like Palm

Beach, Florida, like L.A., are running under this hope that we will just be done with Donald Trump and they can get their fantasy to get that George Bush Republican back. Again, a ridiculous long shot. But they're happy to keep writing checks to her because she's only going to stop when she runs out of money. Correct. And the checks ain't stopping. So let me just follow up that. What's the dot, dot, dot there in the like in the donor in the donor class theory of this, the people that are writing her check? And she's also raising small dollars.

small-dollar donors, right? Because there's a lot of people who don't like Donald Trump and want Nikki Haley to stay in the race, right? He is a polarizing figure, obviously. What is the dot, dot, dot? Like, he gets convicted and collapses, like... Okay, here's the funny thing. The kind of people who are writing our big checks here in New York are the same people who write big checks to no labels. So, in theory, they're like, yeah, like, we don't like this two-party system. We don't think these two guys are the right guys. We need something else. And none of those people who write the checks...

understand how the electoral process works. That's the issue. And so they don't actually have anything at the end of this dot, dot, dot. But they're happy to write the check as a flyer. Rachel. Steph, Steph, can I just ask you, why didn't it work when the Trump campaign made that threat a few weeks ago that anybody who kept donating to Nikki Haley would be cut off?

and dead to me and they'd be, you know, put on an island and set on fire and MAGA would never speak to them again. They made this end of the world threat to the donors. Why didn't it work? Because they're not afraid of him. Because truly rich people know that Donald Trump is going to kiss right up to them when they make friends again. Right.

Think back to when Donald Trump was president. All of those business leaders, that whole Palm Beach set that made fun of him for decades, he loved when they were hanging out with him again. So, yes, for the time being, he's threatening them. But I assure you, when a super mega rich person who owns a sports team wants to befriend him again, he's going to get right back in.

It's a crazy dynamic, though, because if if Haley, as you guys are saying, and I think this is totally right, if Haley stays in as long as she has money and if her money flow continues to be totally independent of her prospects of winning, that is a recipe for her staying in and her being sort of irritant to Trump, him being unable to say that he's got it.

sewn up, him being unable to ignore her. That's a recipe for this continuing indefinitely, which is absolutely the understudy role. And it is 100 percent unprecedented. I mean, it makes it almost more of a Ross Perot kind of candidacy than it is a Pat Buchanan type candidacy or something else or a Pat Robertson candidacy, something else that's happening within the party.

The only thing I would caution, I mean, I'm sure that there are people with deep pockets that want her to stay in forever, but you can be an understudy presuming the audience doesn't boo you when you get on stage. And I think the longer she is in this race, the more she turns off the actual Republican base that would need to come and vote for her in a general election where, you know, she can pair up

these moderates and independents, maybe in a general. But, you know, the party itself has to vote for this person if indeed the understudy ascends to the leading role, right? And I don't want to lose sight of this because we kind of glossed over it. Donald Trump has poisoned a vast, vast wing of the Republican Party basically

to the degree that they will never vote for Nikki Haley. He began talking about, he began spewing lies and bigotry directed at migrants coming into this country, saying they were coming from insane asylums. It sounds awful and comic and everything else, reprehensible, a variety of things to us. But the reality is, you look at the exit polling in South Carolina, 2016,

Should most illegal immigrants working in the U.S. be offered a chance to apply for legal status or deported? Fifty three percent of them said they should be offered to apply for legal status. Forty four percent said they should be deported. This year, 27 percent of them think they should be allowed to apply for legal status. Seventy percent think they should be deported. But now it's about.

who is booing her, right? I think it was Joy who said at the beginning of the show her corporate aspirations. She lives on Kiowa Island. She might lose big in South Carolina. She ain't losing by her neighbors in Kiowa. They're rich New Yorkers. I think the LinkedIn is probably pretty up to date for Nikki Haley. All right. On this South Carolina primary night, we are waiting for Nikki Haley to speak again. So some suspense over what she will say to everything that we've just been discussing here. What is she going to say? We have...

A dean of South Carolina politics here to give us his perspective. A legendary figure in South Carolina politics. In fact, Congressman Jim Clyburn will be joining us next. So don't go anywhere. Have a question or need how to advice? Just ask Meta AI.

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And now, all MSNBC original podcasts are available ad-free and with bonus content, including How to Win 2024, Prosecuting Donald Trump, Why Is This Happening?, and more. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. When I'm in trouble on the left, I call up Lindsey Graham and he straightens it out so fast. And I'll tell you, no, no, no, no, remember, remember,

I love him. He's a good man. Come up here, Lindsay. Come up here, Lindsay. Good man. Woo!

It would not be a Republican primary night without some ritual humiliation of some of the Trump supporters by Donald Trump live on stage where he introduced Lindsey Graham to booze and that had him come up to the microphone. Joining us now from Nikki Haley's headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina, NBC News correspondent Ali Vitale. And I guess I'll say what's the mood there, but I kind of know the answer. What is it like? You know, I'm glad you point out the ritual humiliation from Donald Trump because I know

comment was more. That one he made about Lindsey Graham or when he said that he's glad that Tim Scott didn't have that same energy and drive to continue running for president. Just a night-handed compliment for the South Carolina Senators. Stunning. But

Here at Nikki Haley's headquarters, you know, you could ask the mood, but I would say the mood is not surprised because it's one of the rare moments where in the lead up to tonight's primary, I didn't have to hear from the campaign about us talking about polls that had them getting trounced and walloped. They haven't even argued with me about using those terms. Instead, they know that they're going to lose. And even their campaign manager is saying, we know the odds, but they also know the stakes. That's

That's probably what we're going to hear Nikki Haley come on stage and say at some point in the next few minutes, reminding people why she's still in this race, which is to continue providing an alternative outside of these first three early states. And in part.

They're arguing that they should stay in because the Iowa electorate and the South Carolina electorate look pretty similar. Both of them are sort of primed for a candidate like Donald Trump. They felt better about New Hampshire's coalition that they were able to build, one that was made of Democrats who migrated over to the independent side or independents who truly vote independent and wanted to play in a Republican primary. They're looking ahead to other states like Michigan, like Virginia, that have electorates that look similar to that.

really comes into play here in a very negative way for the Haley campaign. It's something I've asked multiple senior advisors about. The idea that even if she were to close the margins tonight to be within, say, 15 points, which in any other world would be a walloping, but when you see polls that show 20 or 30 points up for Trump, 15 kind of makes them look like they're in the fight.

Even still, they're not going to be able to notch delegates out of this state of South Carolina. That's insult to injury when you consider the fact that it's a loss in a state that elected her twice as governor. It's insult to injury when you look at the fact a who's who of South Carolina politicians

on stage behind the former president. And frankly, it strikes me that I was at Trump's headquarters in 2016 on the night of the South Carolina primary when he was able to fully vanquish the likes of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, who at that point had Haley's backing. Now we're watching the same thing play out here with a similar type of candidate who's trying to be a more establishment version of a Republican nominee.

someone who we would have seen in past elections prior to the Trump era, now having that same coalescing around Trump and now having it be the person who it's her home state. I do think it's really striking to me as someone who's watched this state play such a pivotal point in locking things up

for Donald Trump. And to see the South Carolina Republican Party chair seemingly to say that Nikki Haley should be dropping out or else she's embarrassing herself for her political future. All of this really does lend to the fact the Haley team knows that they are running against basically everyone wanting this to be over. But they're at least saying they're going to stay in for another week and a half more.

NBC's Ali Vitale at Haley headquarters. We will monitor when she comes on stage. I want to go to Lawrence now, who's going to bring in a leading South Carolina Democrat. Lawrence. And joining us now is South Carolina's own James Clyburn, Democratic congressman, co-chair of the Biden-Harris campaign. Congressman Clyburn, thank you very much for joining us on this Republican night. We know this is overtime for you to join us on a night like this.

So Joe Biden went into the South Carolina primary for Democrats three weeks ago. He got 96 percent of the vote. You can expect that to be forgotten in the coverage of whatever percent Donald Trump gets tonight. But it's not going to be close to that. Donald Trump's not going to come close to what Joe Biden did in South Carolina. Does Joe Biden's 96 percent in South Carolina indicate that?

that Joe Biden has much stronger support within his own party right now than Donald Trump does.

Well, thank you very much for having me. I really believe it does. Within the party, I think that Joe Biden is much, much stronger than Donald Trump is within the Democratic Party. I do believe that what you see is a little bit stronger vote for Haley than a lot of people expected her to have. I'm not surprised at it at all.

Going back to four years ago, it was right around now when you had the South Carolina primary and Joe Biden had lost two in a row. Iowa, New Hampshire lost very badly in New Hampshire and then won South Carolina primary with your support, with you pushing him across that finish line. At that time, four years ago, maybe other than you and your wife, it was hard to find anyone in America who thought Joe Biden could even get the nomination, never mind win the presidency.

Well, I think that the people were there. But as you know, when you see results coming in, three big primaries and Joe Biden had lost pretty badly in the first two and a distant second in the third. So people were down.

So I thought that what we needed to do was to get people revved up. And that's what we tried to do with the endorsement. We went beyond what you usually do in order to try to create a surge. We were successful in doing that. And, of course, it affected everything throughout the South and supertussis. And so that's what was then. But now people have seen the record.

that Joe Biden has established, this man is a good man. He demonstrates that in all of his goings. And he is a great president. That what we have as his record, it demonstrates that. So I just think that you're going to see a much calmer electorate than you saw before. But

I think you're going to see a much more effective electorate than we had before.

And Carson, Carmen, going back to four years ago right now, the polling of Donald Trump versus Joe Biden was very similar to the polling we're seeing now. This week, we had a Quinnipiac national poll where Joe Biden had the higher number of the two. Back then, it was very close. It was basically a tie within the margin of error. That's the way it is now. And so the polling now is very similar to the way it was four years ago.

What made the difference between this point in the calendar and November when Joe Biden was able to pull away? I think that people began to focus on the two people. They saw the record that Trump had established in his four years. They saw his modacity. They saw his

uh, the lack of compassion that people like to see in their president. And they compare that. And it was a classic example of what Joe Biden often says. Don't compare me to the almighty. Compare me to the alternative. And that's what's going to happen here. Uh, when we go into this general election, I think people are going to

Compare these two people and they're going to see a good man in Joe Biden and a great president as opposed to a bad guy and a very failed presidency. Chris. All right. Congressman Jim Clyburn, thank you very much for joining us tonight on this Republican Saturday night. We appreciate you giving us your time. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you. We're back to Chris.

We've got much more to come of our special coverage of the South Carolina Republican primary. We are waiting for Nikki Haley to speak, which we expect at any moment. So stay with us. Don't go anywhere.

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Sunday on MSNBC. One night, two documentaries. At 9 p.m. Eastern, To Be Destroyed. The story of one community's fight against book banning. My book, along with four others, was pulled from the shelves. Followed by It's Okay, a short film about embracing differences in small-town America. Can I share some stories with you? It's okay.

Okay. To be different. Back to Back Documentaries, Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC. One of the reasons we won North Carolina is a man named Michael Whatley who looks like...

Looks to me we gave him our endorsement and he looks to me like he's going to be going on to the National Republican Party as the boss Michael Watley, where's Michael Michael? Thank you very much And he's gonna be working with Laura and we may be putting Kellyanne in the group, too Do we like Kellyanne? We love Kellyanne

But you're going to do a fantastic job, both of you. We appreciate it very much. What a job he's done in North Carolina. Trump announcing, I guess you could say, that Kellyanne Conway is going to be rejoining his campaign. Also, Michael Watley, who he mentioned there, is now poised to be one of a triumvirate of basically pro-Trump candidates.

adjuncts who are going to take over the entire institutional RNC, Rachel. There's been some back and forth about whether that's going to happen and how. It's been in the works now, and you can see Trump very focused on that for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is the fundraising apparatus that is the RNC.

Right. And the RNC's decision, consequential decision for that as an institution, as to whether or not they're going to put some of the funding, the money that they raise toward paying his personal legal liabilities and lawyer's fees, which, of course, is potentially an existential question for him. So, yeah, he wants people named Trump involved.

Thank you.

which does seem like a sort of standard and not too, you know, a standard consideration and not too high a bar, especially for somebody who hasn't technically locked up the nomination yet. But for Trump to be ousting Ronna Romney McDaniel, for him to be elevating this North Carolina guy who is,

stop the steal guy who is a guy who believes Trump's lies or at least is willing to take up Trump's case in terms of trying to overthrow election results and saying that the 2020 election wasn't a real election result. And now he's saying he's going to bring Kellyanne Conway back as well. It's not exactly his call.

until he's president, let alone the nominee. But this appears to have been some sort of announcement or at least a big focus group in front of a live crowd in South Carolina tonight to that being the new leadership.

You know, one of the big questions on these nights that we've had throughout it and Lawrence, this goes to the conversation you were just having with James Clyburn. Of course, the way the primaries work is that you cannot extrapolate primary electorates to general electorates. Right. So I remember, you know, sometimes people during the 2016, you know, Bernie Sanders won this group in West Virginia. He's going to be competitive in West Virginia. He's not going to be competitive in West Virginia. You know, that's not going to happen.

There's a little bit of a caveat here with Trump, I think. And Alex, your thoughts on this. Basically, that chunk of voters who are like, I'm not voting for Trump in all three of these states,

How many of those are partisan Republicans who are just going to be like, I'm going to vote for the nominee? Or is there some signal about his general election viability that we're seeing in these states? Well, I mean, I am intrigued to that end by the exit polling we have to that question about his viability. Right. And this was surprising. If Haley is nominated, how likely is she to beat Biden?

Fifty five percent say likely. Forty three percent say not likely. If Trump is nominated, how likely is he to be Biden? Eighty three percent say likely.

of these South Carolina primary voters believe he is likely to beat Joe Biden. I mean, and that is, you know, 30, no, 27, 28 points higher than Nikki Haley. And we should know that that's not what the polling indicated. It's the opposite in some ways. Quite reliably, Ari. It's very hard to get a job you've never had before. They always say you've had it.

That's the best evidence for it. And so I don't want to, you know, assume too much about any voting group. But the guy has been president before. Absolutely. Yeah, that's a fact. And he also lost before. You remember that. Yeah, we covered that. So I do think that we sometimes are looking at this as if we're comparing two candidates.

or two Republicans or two whatever. And it's like he was president. They have the idea that, well, he's won it before through the Electoral College. He could win it again. And it might come down to that. He also has lost to Joe Biden. That's also true. Let me just play one voter here. This is SOT number three. I thought this thing, this captures the thing you have to remember. Most primary voters are partisan members of

their party because they're showing up in a primary. So most of them come home in the end, right? That's just what happens. And that's why you can't extrapolate out these general results. And you also can't extrapolate too much about how they feel about the person they're not voting for. But

Basically, we've been out in the field talking to voters. And here's, I think, a sort of representative example of how they feel about the two candidates and why they want Trump.

Now, this is controversial, but I did vote for Donald Trump. I like Nikki Haley fine. I just feel like that he might be the one to help us right now. I think Nikki would be a good president if she wins the primary and should win the election. I think she'd be a great president. I don't have any negatives. I just feel like he has maybe he could just jump in and do a better job right now. OK, but Chris, she is one of the Trump voters who would take Nikki Haley. Correct. The voters to think about are the 37 percent who voted for Nikki Haley. Correct.

who would they vote for in a general election? Lawrence needs to wait. I mean, this is like your sweet spot. How is Joe Biden looking at this 37%? These numbers are disastrous for Donald Trump. Disastrous, okay? That's the reason I mentioned that the big forgotten number of South Carolina.

which is Joe Biden getting 96 percent. OK, that's what you're supposed to get. All right. And Donald Trump's not going to come close to that. Donald Trump's going to leave 30 percent. I don't know, 25 percent, whatever it is. 37 percent. Not yet. We don't know. We don't know what the result of this election is tonight, but it's going to be a very substantial number. Could be a third of the vote. He's going to leave that on the table belonging to another candidate. All you need, all you need.

is 5% of the 30%. We're talking about a sliver. That's all you need to not vote for Donald Trump, of this representative kind of voter, in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, in Arizona, in Georgia. And so these are disastrous voting results for Donald Trump in the general election. Well, not South Carolina. He's going to win South Carolina. Of course.

But that voter in the Haley vote package is represented in New Hampshire, is represented in these other states, and is represented in all the other swing states. Wisconsin, you need a tiny slice of them. And 10,000 of them make a difference. And they're also relatively easy to model from a data perspective of who they are, as Steve has been showing night after night. We are expecting remarks from Nikki Haley imminently with her case for staying in the race. Much more ahead. Stay with us.

You're watching our continuing special coverage of the South Carolina Republican primary. I am Chris Hayes, along with Rachel, Joy, Lawrence, Stephanie, Alex and Ari. It is 8 p.m. here on the East Coast. If you're tuning in late, polls closed in South Carolina one hour ago and just about four seconds afterwards.

Our Decision Desk called the race for Donald Trump. It is another decisive victory for the ex-president over his only serious remaining rival, that's former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. A lot has changed in American politics since Haley was last on the ballot in the Palmetto State a decade ago. Tonight's results are testament to that. Once considered a dominant force in state politics, she now trails Donald Trump by a substantial margin.

In a typically rambling victory speech, the ex-president looked ahead to what right now seems to be an all but inevitable general election showdown between him and President Joe Biden. Haley, for her part, has already vowed to stay in the race at least through Super Tuesday.

And we're now waiting at what could be any moment her concession speech down in her headquarters in South Carolina. We've got some more vote in. Let's head over to Steve Kornacki, the big board. Steve, you're keeping tabs.

on the question of whether Nikki Haley can come out of tonight with delegates in one of the congressional districts in the state of South Carolina. Yeah, again, just basically how this works in terms of the delegates is, as you see, there's 50 that are being given out in South Carolina. Twenty nine of these 50 are based on the statewide vote. Whoever wins statewide picks up twenty nine. We projected Donald Trump's going to win statewide. So he gets those twenty nine delegates. What's left after that is twenty one delegates that are given out.

by congressional district. And that's what you see right here. It's a little rough to see with all the red here, but these are congressional districts. There are seven in the state and each one has three delegates on its own. Seven districts times three. That's the other 21 delegates. You win the district elections

you win all three delegates. So you see in these districts so far, one, two, three of them, we've already projected that Donald Trump will win those individual districts, which is three, six, nine more delegates for Donald Trump. So at this point, we've projected that 38 of the 50 are going to go to Donald Trump. Um,

There's a little bit of suspense right now. I don't know if that's the right word, but if there's any chance for Haley to win a congressional district, it's this one right here. This is the first district here. This is the low country. This is Charleston. We talked about Charleston has the

highest concentration of college degrees, voters with college degrees of any county in the state. This is also an area of the state where you do have a lot of independents and Democrats, especially Democrats relative to the rest of the state. Folks, Haley's trying to attract over to the Republican side. And then you got big, fast,

Excuse me. Fast growing suburb there. This is Berkeley County. Very fast growing. This is also part of the district. I think what's interesting is take a look right now in Berkeley. Donald Trump's margin over Nikki Haley is about 7000 votes. And what we've got out of Charleston right now is Haley's margin over Donald Trump is about 6000 votes. And you see there is a fair amount to come in Charleston. What else is in this district? The other big.

Biggie is Beaufort County, where we have almost no vote. This is where Hilton Head is. Again, this is an area with a big concentration of college degrees, a lot of wealth, although probably more conservative than Charleston County is. So those are the biggies. There's a piece of Colleton County, a piece of Dorchester County in here as well. But I think it's interesting that between Charleston and

excuse me, and Berkeley County, where just about all the vote is in. Haley's about even with Trump. The problem for Haley is, while there is a lot of vote to come in Charleston, and she's certainly doing well with this, we think what we're looking at right here is the early vote, the ballots that were cast early, about a third of the total in Charleston. What we're seeing in other counties around the state now, where the same-day vote

is being counted up and reported out. We're seeing Trump run better with the same day than he did with the early vote. So I'm not sure that this Haley margin over Trump is going to continue with the remaining Charleston County vote. And again, you just look at the past, Beaufort County is more favorable to Trump than Charleston County. So let's see what happens with the remaining vote in Charleston. But

That is, in terms of this election night in South Carolina, the open question is this first district and if Haley could find a way to win it and pick up those three, those delegates. And like we said, if she were to succeed in winning the first district, it doesn't change the

overall picture trajectory of the Republican race. But if you can win a district like the first demographically in terms of income, in terms of college degree concentration, this sort of thing, there are some districts out there on super Tuesday where the delegates are awarded like this, that Haley could then potentially win. But I,

Again, I want to emphasize here, we're talking about a very, very small number of delegates in a very, very small number of districts in the grand scheme of things. But that's what we're looking at in South Carolina right now. And again, we can return to the statewide vote. Just check in on that. About a quarter is in right now. And remember, it's a 17 point Trump margin. This is basically, with a few exceptions here, early.

early vote. We're starting to get same day vote in, starting to potentially see a pattern where Trump is doing better with that. So we'll see how these numbers start to fill. But I think from this point forward, we're really going to start getting more of that same day vote and we'll see if these numbers move. All right. Steve Bernanke. I'm curious, Joy Reid, if you are advising Nikki Haley right now or you are her comms person. I mean, honestly, like what what's the what's the thrust of the remarks tonight?

Well, it would be hard for me to imagine being her comms person, but let me just try to sort of nightmare with you for a moment and say that I was. What I would say to Nikki Haley is that sometimes in defeat, you can actually have your finest hour. You'll recall that Barack Obama, then Senator Barack Obama's most famous speech was given on the night he lost the New Hampshire primary.

Yes, we can. That is the speech that most people thought was his slogan. It was so famous it became a pop hit because Will.I.Am turned it into a hit on YouTube. Right. So he had his sort of finest hour. And I'm not saying she is somehow a Barack Obama. I'm not comparing her to him for all my Obama fans out there. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying that this is the night that people are going to pay the most attention to Nikki Haley, probably for the rest of this political cycle, because she is losing her home state. This is when people are going to focus on her.

Steve Kornacki has made it very clear, giving us all of these numbers. She cannot access the MAGA base. She cannot access this white evangelical, hardcore, anti-immigrant base. Donald Trump keeps giving her openings when he did his thing about black people love him because he's indicted and trying to sell them on sneakers. He's given her a lot of openings to go somewhere else.

And I think you're going to kind of understand where she wants to go from here, whether it's politics or something else based on what she does with this spotlight that is the brightest it will be on her probably forever. Right. And so it will be interesting to see if she takes this opportunity to speak to the donor class.

and say, think of me as a 2028 tax-cutting George Bush Republican, which seems to me to be a far-out kind of fanciful kind of idea, but she could try to speak to the donor class that way. Or...

She could speak to the people who actually have been voting for her in the last three contests we've seen. Independent voters. And just zero in on them. No more pandering on the Civil War and saying it wasn't about slavery. No more of the pandering she used to do on the Confederate flag, which is how she became governor. Let's see if she tries to lean into...

the never Trump world, which is someplace she's not wanting to go. I think Alex has made that point. She hasn't run like a never Trumper would run. She hasn't run like somebody who doesn't understand. She's run like somebody who doesn't understand she can't get the MAGA base and who still wants them. You can't get them, Nikki. And so it'll be interesting to me to see if she decides to sort of leapfrog over MAGA and speak to the country in a way that sets her up as some sort of a future dot, dot, dot.

I don't know what it is that she wants to do. And I've actually been told she doesn't want to stay in politics if she doesn't do this. She doesn't have some plan to be, you know, a senator or something like that. But I think we'll know what she really wants to be and do based on what she does, because this is the biggest Klieg light that she'll probably get for the rest of this cycle. Yeah, I can tell you, Nikki Haley, some donors tell me she is not going to

overtake Donald Trump. Look at the stronghold he has on MAGA voters. She just has to be the backup quarterback standing on the sidelines, hoping Drew Bledsoe gets injured, gets out of the game, and she can step in. And they end up in the game a lot. If you watch this last... Nikki Haley does not have

any conceivable path to the nomination, even if Donald Trump withdraws the week before the election. This is the other issue. The reason is well over 90% of the delegates are going to be Trump delegates at the convention. If they must get another nominee because Donald Trump is hospitalized or whatever, if they have to do that, it will not be her. It will literally be his son. I guarantee you. It'll be someone who has never... You don't think his daughter?

One of them. Those delegates will only go for someone who has not attacked Donald Trump. Anyway, it's not going to happen. Trump's the nominee. Speaking of, let's go to Trump headquarters in Columbia, South Carolina. That's where NBC News correspondent...

Von Hilliard is standing by for us. And, Von, my understanding is you've got some reporting. We've been talking about this tonight, basically about the RNC and its sort of institutional posture as an arm of the Trump campaign or ostensibly a neutral arbiter in a competitive primary. And you've got some reporting tonight about the RNC resolution that would slow down Trump's plan to handpick new leadership for the RNC.

Right, Chris, there is a structural consequence of Nikki Haley staying in this race. Let's be clear. Joe Biden and the DNC are already able to work together. They are working in joint tandem fundraising operation here. And you saw that in the numbers so far here to start the year. Right now, the RNC and Donald Trump are getting outraised by millions of dollars. And so by Nikki Haley staying in the race, it is keeping...

the RNC and the Trump campaign from merging and allowing Trump to effectively take over the RNC. And a resolution that was just put forward today by an RNC member, his name is Henry Barber from Mississippi, he's a long-time prominent RNC member, he crafted a resolution and intends to bring it to the full 168-member body of the RNC. And that resolution states that the two entities, the Trump campaign and the RNC, cannot merge their operations

until either Donald Trump hits the required number of delegates to become the presumptive nominee or Nikki Haley drops out of the race. And so for Nikki Haley, who is saying that she intends to go nowhere, there are serious questions about whether Donald Trump can actually put Laura Trump and Michael Watley into the positions of chair and co-chair.

and move his co-campaign manager, Chris Lasavita, into a chief operating officer role at the RNC as he would like. Because in the meanwhile, there is this resolution. When these RNC members meet in Houston, Texas on March 7th, they could very well vote for. And I can tell you guys from conversations with multiple RNC members, there is disagreement over whether Donald Trump should have the power

to dictate who the RNC chair is. The one RNC member told me explicitly that if Donald Trump wants to pick his chair, he should go win the presidential election in November. And there is one man, his name is Drew McKissick, another RNC member, who just this afternoon, he did not rule out challenging Michael Whatley for the RNC chairmanship.

because it's not Donald Trump that makes that decision. It is that 168-member body who are looking at not just the White House, but also the Senate and House candidates as well in those races. And I am told that there are serious conversations nine months out about what this RNC and Trump operation could look like. And of course, it's now just a matter of time until Donald Trump gets the keys. But there is some intraparty battle inside of the RNC right now over the extent to which he will control those keys, guys.

Vaughn, that's great reporting. Can we just play a moment from Trump's victory tonight? Drew McKissick, the individual that was just noted by Vaughn Hilliard.

He is actually, I believe it's the same individual tonight who is in the room. And after the crowd had booed Lindsey Graham and Trump sort of threw him out there to get continue to boot. Drew McKissick also was out there. He was also getting booed. This sort of explains what was an otherwise weird moment there tonight. But just to get a sense of that backstory and that.

And the fact that despite him saying tonight, everyone's unified. And to Lawrence's point about, you know, Joe Biden getting 95 percent in South Carolina. Here's where that individual got shouted out by Trump. And this is his reception in that room. Take a listen. We have a man who's done a really good job in the state. Your South Carolina GOP chair, Drew McKissick. Thank you. Thank you.

We have a highly opinionated group of people. I'll tell you, they've turned very positive on you very quickly, Elizabeth. Just naming people and watching them get booed. This is a feisty and celebratory atmosphere, Rachel, at the Trump victory party tonight.

Yeah, and it's, you know, it's what Lawrence is spotlighting in his inimitable way, I actually think is very, very important. And you can see it at work in all of these different dynamics that we are observing, right? We've got Nikki Haley right now with about 40 percent of the vote, despite the fact that Trump appears to be the inevitable nominee. There's good reason to believe in the exit polling suggests that a

A reasonable proportion of Nikki Haley's voters will not vote for Donald Trump when he is the nominee of the Republican Party. That is a problem. That is, as Lawrence says, a sign of significant weakness for Trump, who's running effectively as an incumbent.

You do have him trying to bigfoot the RNC, throwing out Ronna McDaniel, tonight essentially announcing who he's installing. But that will be a contested matter. As Vaughn just reported, that was fascinating when they have the Houston meeting of the RNC. It's not a gigantic meeting. It's not a meeting of the Trump base. It's not a meeting of millions of people. It's a meeting of 160-something people.

They very well may vote for a resolution that requires the RNC to stay neutral, that does not allow the RNC to start funding Trump's legal bills. I mean, all of these dynamics are all pointing in the same direction, which is that the Democratic Party is

certainly, you know, has its challenges in terms of having a nominee who doesn't have great approval ratings and people think he's old and there's some fractures in the coalition. Sure. But on the Republican side, you have a former president who is the most controversial politician in American history, not named Benedict Arnold, who wasn't a politician. And the Republican fracturing around him is real, despite the fact that he seems to be winning the primaries running away and will likely continue to do so.

Those will have general election consequences and they may very quickly have fundraising consequences. Biden's already gotten got nearly double the cash on hand that Trump does. The DNC already has nearly triple the cash on hand that the RNC has. If those divisions persist, that's going to be structural trouble for the Republican Party heading into a hotly contested general election.

Yeah. And Alex, you know, to Rachel's point there, you know, one thing that transcends ideology always in the time of current politics is like turf and money. Yeah. And honestly, that is what's at play here for the RNC in terms of looking at the legal debts he has, listening to Laura Trump be like every penny is going to go to Donald Trump. All of it should go to my father-in-law's legal defense at a moment when, you know, other expenses are mounting to the tune of, you know, half a billion dollars. No, I mean, it is.

The timing on trying to install your people at the RNC is not particularly, it's not a mystery why you might want to control those purse strings. But I think, you know, the point has been made, I'll just elaborate on it, the fact that Biden and the DNC have a sort of glide path here. And Trump not only has the sort of intra-party fight at the RNC, the huge question of money more generally, the pressure that's going to put on his supporters to be asked over and over again. And then,

also, I think, you know, we talk about this anecdotally more than we have factual evidence to support it. The idea that Nikki Haley is going to maybe remain in this race, not just to complicate matters with the RNC, but to be a reminder of

of why people don't like Trump, you know, that he's a flawed candidate. That is not helpful to him as he seeks to say, you know, the party is as united as ever as it ever has been. Yeah. And I think most of the Republican Party and definitely its leadership and its politicians have gone along with Donald Trump's opposition to honoring elections. That is a through line of our politics. And there are some trials scheduled to also deal with that. And

And yet, what do we find? Some of them are more vocal, dislike it more when he takes that same tack towards the

Republican elections. So Rachel and others just referred to a voting process that's within the RNC. Now, we could get into it legally. Of course, it's a little different than a government election. But again, do you honor those outcomes? Do you allow Republicans to participate? And then you honor what those voting members say or not. Donald Trump has shown time and time again, we can't say legally whether it's a criminal or not.

But we can say as a fact for people watching that Donald Trump has proven himself to be anti-election, anti-democracy in ways that hurt the country, our democracy. Yes, the Democratic president who he's now trying to run against again, but also, and this might sway other people for different reasons, also against Republicans, also against having a

primary calendar that's been scheduled for some time. It was only weeks ago they were trying to have the RNC formally declare it over and disenfranchise, I use that word literally, disenfranchise tens of millions of Republicans around the nation. Now, I wish...

personally, as a person and a journalist, that we all cared about these issues equally, that you didn't have to find your team affected to care more. But this is the real world. And I'm not saying every Republican cares about it, but we just got reporting from our own team that some voting members of the RNC care about it. Nikki Haley's fans care about it. Some other people in later states care about it. It's a not zero factor that Donald Trump's attack on

on honoring all of democracy is also potentially hurting him inside the Republican Party. Well, and you also make a really good point here, Stephanie, which is this, that when you have fractured coalitions, right, you see a lot of outreach usually to try to suture those over. There's, of course, the unity in New Hampshire. I always think about the unity in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama appearing together. You saw this process play out between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden in 2020. It's hard

to imagine the version of that here, but there's going to have to be something like that, or they face what Lawrence flagged, which is some percentage of those people not coming back inside the tent. Well, what Donald Trump does is get to the podium and lie and talk about how unified the party is. Right. Think of

has Donald Trump reached out to beyond his base? What has he offered anyone beyond his base in this campaign? There is not one policy proposal. There's not one event. He's got his hardcore Trump lovers and that's it. So when you think about the people that are now firmly in Nikki Haley's camp,

Do you really see them turning to Donald Trump come November like Democrats did for Joe Biden? You know, you could have had a Pete Buttigieg Democrat, an Amy Klobuchar Democrat that turned around and said, yep, I'm going to vote for Biden come November. Are those voters really going to do that for Trump? Not if he keeps going the road he's going down and the one she's going down. And Ari, Ari.

I had forgotten that little moment in the news cycle when they clearly push Ronald McDaniel to put out this, to start this revolution being like, party's over, guys. Show's done. Everyone go home. Tip your waiters. And Trump had to come out to be like, ah!

Let's let it play out. Briefly, that's part of why they're trying to bring in new leadership. We are still anticipating Nikki Haley to come out and give what is at this point one of the most anticipated concession speeches we've had in this cycle so far. So let's sneak in a quick break and then we will get that on the other side. We are reliably informed. Let's see.

I just wish we could do it quicker. Nine months is a long time. I just wish we could do it quicker, Mr. Governor. I wish we... Is there anything you can do with your vast powers to make that... You know, in certain countries, you're allowed to call your election date. If I had the right to do it, I'd do it tomorrow. I'd say, we're having an election tomorrow.

You would imagine he would want to have the election before facing any of the criminal trials he is now possibly going to face. Let's head back over to Steve Kornacki. Steve, not a lot of suspense on the winner of tonight's contest. Some suspense on the possibility of some delegates being won by Nikki Haley.

That really is it. It's a question of whether the final split is going to be a clean 50-0 sweep for Donald Trump or if Nikki Haley is going to win a congressional district. Remember, you win a district, you get three delegates. There are seven congressional districts in South Carolina. And so take a look here. Actually, you can see Charleston County and Beaufort County. This is where Hilton Head is here, kind of in the low country of South Carolina. These two counties right now are

in Haley Redd. Buford is all in the 1st District. Not all, but a lot of Charleston's in the 1st District. And if we pull up our friend the Congressional District map here, again, you see we have not called several Congressional Districts, but a big one we have not called is the 1st District.

And if you take a look in some of the component counties here, here's what we're seeing. Take a look. This is the bedroom county, bedroom community county of Berkeley County. It is very fast growing. Now, Donald Trump has opened up as pretty significant advantage over Nikki Haley here. This is bigger than what we were seeing earlier. So Trump needs to get a big market.

Thank you.

But about two thirds of the vote is going to be election day vote. And that's what's coming in now. And we're getting some indications that may be more friendly to Trump than the early vote. If that's the case, then the remaining vote here in Charleston County, this would be the early vote plus some of the same day. But this Trump number could rise as the same day is coming in. I think that's kind of the critical question right here, because if it stays at this level and the rest of that vote continues to go to Haley at an almost two to one margin, she is going to

She is going to get a lot of votes, bank a lot of votes that way. And then the question would really become Beaufort County. And what you're looking at here is the early vote in Beaufort County, none of the same day. And Haley jumps out to a 17 point advantage here. How different is that Election Day vote going to look from the same day vote? Does Donald Trump suddenly get over 50 percent of the Election Day vote and make Beaufort County a wall?

Or does he not really do much better with the remaining vote? In which case, you know, if Haley were to put Buford and Charleston together, could that offset Berkeley? Could that offset the little piece of Colleton County, the piece of Dorchester County that's in this? And so that's the question right now.

There's still a lot of vote to come, but that's the suspense. Yeah. You know, to the extent there is. If Haley wins that, that's three delegates for her. But like I said, she could take that. And there are some districts. I don't want to overstate this at all, but there are some districts looking at the Super Tuesday where they give out the vote like this. The demographically are similar to this, that she could then say, I can make a run at those districts. But that's.

You know, there could be a thousand delegates, as I said, given out after tonight and into Super Tuesday. Very, very few are going to be three to three congressional district delegates in a place like this.

That first congressional district represented currently by Nancy Mace, someone who Nikki Haley sort of put her political weight behind to save from a primary challenge successfully for Mace to turn around and endorse Donald Trump. She, along with Lindsey Graham, at the Trump headquarters tonight. Let's bring in someone who knows delegate math better than almost any person on the planet. And that is former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, who is one of the masterminds of that delegate math campaign.

That was a lot closer delegate math. That delegate math required a lot more precise calculation of marginal cost benefit than the delegate math we're seeing here, where it just, to Steve's point, looks overwhelming.

Yeah, the delegate situation is immaterial. I mean, Trump's going to assuming Haley does stay in, Trump's going to have a massive lead coming out of Super Tuesday. I do agree with Lawrence. Even if something were to happen to Trump health wise in July or August, that convention is not going to nominate Nikki Haley. So she's not staying in, I think, because she thinks there's some outside chance. I think the important thing, though, you know, we're now heading to the geriatric cage match, the general election.

And the important thing is we now have Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. These are not general election voters that are Republicans. These are primary voters. And 35, 40 percent are not choosing Trump.

And so, you know, the best campaigns and the best companies, you know, have the best data. And the Biden campaign has so much data right now about the type of voters who you can then translate that to Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, who have a problem with Trump. And that, to me, is a gift for the Biden campaign and a huge problem for Donald Trump, because at the end of the day, you know, he's going to have to get anywhere from 47 to 50 percent of the vote. And when you have that many Republican primary voters, you

There's going to be more Republican general election voters. So I think that's the most important thing coming out of this from a general election standpoint. Trump's going to get headlines about his big win. He's essentially the incumbent president, and he's performing quite poorly if you frame it in that way. How much, David...

How easy or hard is it for a campaign like the Biden campaign to basically literally find the individual voters? Right. I mean, people that are, again, because it's so polarized and obviously not not every Haley voter in these circumstances is going to be an anti-Trump voter in a general election. In fact, I think the majority. But to find that small sliver of the persuadable few.

Well, listen, all of us as Americans have, you know, hundreds of data points. So the Biden campaign will go to figure out who's been voting for Haley and find people just like them in the battleground states. Nikki Haley now approaching the podium. Let's take a listen to what she has to say. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Y'all are a rowdy bunch.

But I love that about you. Thank you. You know, I want to start off obviously thanking my family. I am so incredibly blessed.

I was able to speak with Michael this morning. His support has been amazing. The kids have really stepped up, sometimes too much, but they have stepped up in a way that has made me so, so proud. I am blessed because I had the ability to actually go vote today with my mom. Yeah!

You know, and there's something very special with the fact that she was a lawyer in India and she was named one of the first female judges. And because of the times, she was never able to sit on the bench. But the fact that she could go with me and cast her ballot for her daughter as president of the United States was amazing. I want to thank my parents who taught me strength and grace. I want to thank Michael's parents who have been unbelievably supportive through all of this.

And I want to thank my brothers and my sister and their families for always supporting us every step of the way. Thank you. I feel blessed tonight. I've felt blessed through this entire journey. Even when it's been tough, I haven't lost sight of that. I've felt God's strength and grace every step of the way. I'm blessed to have served the state that raised me.

And I look forward to continuing to be blessed to serve the state that raised me, whether it's going and voting with my mom or whether it is being with our family. We're very grateful for the good people of South Carolina. Thank you. And it's a blessing to know that across our sweet state, everyone wants to bring back the America we know and love. That's the underlying message of what happened today. I want to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory.

And I want to thank the people of South Carolina for using the power of your voice. No matter the results, I love the people of our state. I love what we accomplished together, and I love how we united during our worst challenges and tragedies. I've always seen our state as a family. Families are honest with each other. They say the hard truths. That's what I've done this entire campaign.

And that's what I'll do now. What I saw today was South Carolina's frustration with our country's direction. I've seen that same frustration nationwide. I share it. I feel it to my core. I couldn't be more worried about America. It seems like our country is falling apart. But here's the thing. America will come apart if we make the wrong choices.

This has never been about me or my political future. We need to beat Joe Biden in November. I don't believe Donald Trump can beat Joe Biden. Nearly every day, Trump drives people away, including with his comments just yesterday. Woo!

Today in South Carolina, we're getting around 40% of the vote. That's about what we got in New Hampshire, too. I'm going to count it. I know 40% is not 50%. But I also know 40% is not some tiny group. There

There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative. I said earlier this week that no matter what happens in South Carolina, I would continue to run for president. I'm a woman of my word. I'm not giving up this fight when a majority of Americans disapprove of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

South Carolina has spoken. We're the fourth state to do so. In the next 10 days, another 21 states and territories will speak. They have the right to a real choice, not a Soviet-style election with only one candidate. And I have a duty to give them that choice. We can't afford four more years of Biden's failures or Trump's lack of focus.

We're at $34 trillion in debt and counting. Not even a third of our eighth graders are proficient in reading. Families can't afford groceries. Nine million illegals have come to our border with enough fentanyl to kill every single American. And beyond our borders, the world is on fire. War is spreading further every day. If we aren't strong,

Those wars will draw America further in. And it's not just about policies. We won't get out of our downward spiral if we keep obsessing over the past. Does anyone seriously think Joe Biden or Donald Trump will unite our country to solve our problem? One of them calls his fellow Americans fascists. The other calls his fellow Americans vermin.

They aren't fighting for our country's future. They're demanding we fight each other. The younger generation, my children's generation, knows it better than anyone. They deserve better. They deserve leadership. And so I will keep fighting for them and for you and all of America. From the start of this campaign, I have made clear that I'm running for president to save America.

I'm running to remind us what it means to be an American. In the America I know and love, we believe in each other. And we believe in America's inherent goodness. Now is the time to renew that belief. Now is the time to remember who we are. We're citizens of the greatest country in human history. USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

And we must lead now more than ever before. I'm grateful to South Carolina. I always have been and I always will be. And I'm grateful that today is not the end of our story. We're headed to Michigan tomorrow. And we're headed to the Super Tuesday States throughout all of next week. Yeah!

We'll keep fighting for America and we won't rest until America wins. I want to give a few thank yous because we have had some people who've really, there have been too many to thank. But I really have to single out Congressman Ralph Norman. Ralph has had pressure on him from every side that he needed to not support me and that he needed to step away from me. And he always said, there's no way in hell.

I want to thank Senator Tom Davis, Representative Nathan Ballantyne, and Representative Mike Neese, who were there. We had other supporters, but they were constantly there. Tom, you've been there from the very beginning. Nathan, you'll forever be my deskmate. Mike, I won't know what to do if I don't see you at an event, but I am truly, truly grateful. Solicitors Scarlett Wilson and Duffy Stone,

Amazing rock stars for our state that we should all be proud of. Mayor Brenda Bethune really stepped up. The mayor of Myrtle Beach, she was absolutely fantastic. Former Congressman Gresham Barrett. You know, the story behind me and Gresham is we had, we duked it out in our first primary when I ran for governor.

And to have him call me and say, not only do I want to help you, I will do whatever you need me to do. Gresham, thank you for the prayers. Thank you for the text. Thank you for the encouragement. I am grateful for that. And everybody needs a friend like Bubba Cromer.

Nikki Haley making good on her word not to leave the race announcing tonight she will continue to fight. Stressing, she says, that she got about 40 percent of the vote, at least as of now, on that wall. She's good enough to math to know it's not 50, that 40 percent is not some tiny little group. Rachel, your thoughts on that speech?

That was exactly what I was focusing on as well, wondering if Governor Haley was listening in on our discussion earlier about that Lawrence first highlighted and that we've been talking about ever since, this idea that, you know,

you know, yes, Trump is winning and Trump's been winning throughout this primary process. But the Haley candidacy, I think specifically because it does not show any risk of winning, its strength nevertheless is a problem for Trump, who wants to wrap this up, who wishes she wasn't in the race and who keeps proclaiming unity while ceding 40 percent of the vote to her. She said tonight,

Today in South Carolina, we're getting around 40 percent of the vote. That's about what we got in New Hampshire, too. I know 40 percent is not 50 percent, but I know 40 percent is not some tiny group. She said there are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative. I said earlier this week, no matter what happens in South Carolina, I would continue to run for president. I am a woman of my word. And then the crowd goes wild.

First of all, she's good at giving a speech. Second of all, that's an incredibly fired-up room for a group of people whose candidate just lost at poll closing. But she is making a case that, despite the top-line results—

is justified by the data that there's a problem with the prohibitive frontrunner in the Republican Party. She's making that case against him both on substantive grounds in terms of what he's like, what he was like as a president, what he's like as a candidate now, what he's offering the country in this campaign, but also a horse race analysis as well, saying, listen, if Trump has this wrapped up, how come 40 percent of y'all are voting for me here and in New Hampshire?

I mean, it's a it's a reasonable case to be making. Joy, what do you think? So I wrote down a few lines. I think that's really what Rachel just said. I'll add to it. This is a couple of her lines. Everyone wants to bring back the America we we we used to know we used to love, she said. That's that nostalgia commentary that you gave her.

She said she loves her state. I love how we united during our worst challenges. She said the people have a right to a real choice, not a Soviet style election with just one candidate. This is where she calls out both Biden and Trump. She says one of them calls fellow Americans fascist. The other calls them vermin. She says Trump drives people away. And then she goes into her riff about the 40 percent.

Nikki Haley, I think, did very well. First of all, she is a talented politician. I think we all need to acknowledge her talent as a politician. She's good at giving a speech. But what she's also particularly good at, and it's one of the reasons she became governor of a state like South Carolina that is so white evangelical, that is so antithetical to the idea of the Daltonian,

of immigrants from India you would think would not have a shot there. But what she's really good at is doing the kind of nostalgia that, frankly, Barack Obama used to do and that voters, I mean, that candidates of color have to do in order to succeed in American politics.

They push to a nostalgia about this. We are in America with possibilities. It's the reason she won't say America is a racist country. It's the reason most black politicians won't say it. Yet there is a part of the American electorate that wants to believe the best about America. They want to believe the rose colored glasses version of America.

Tonight, Nikki Haley spoke to those people who she has very accurately said make up maybe four out of 10 Republican and independent Republican leading independent voters. She didn't try to speak to the MAGA crowd. She didn't try to pander to Trump's voters. She ignored them, essentially. And she went straight for that kind of nostalgia portion of the Republican Party that still remains.

thought that was very smart. And that is kind of what I was saying that she might do to sort of leapfrog over MAGA, to ignore them essentially, and to speak to that kind of nostalgic voter that in the past voted for, you know, George W. Bush or whatever. She's a standard issue, old style type Republican who has zero shot of being the nominee in this in this election. Right.

However, she is keeping alive the fact that that part of the party and that part of the independent portion of our electorate does exist. Now, her policies are far right. If you dug deeper into what she believes, she's a far right wing Tea Partier. But she presents as that old fashioned type of nostalgia candidate and a candidate of color in the Republican Party where I think there's value to that. So her staying in the race.

I'm quite sure that the Democrats are very happy to have her. She's not going to be the nominee, but she's a reminder every day and every time she opens her mouth.

that there still are Republican voters who want something other than MAGA, who believe in something about America that isn't MAGA and who actually are open to someone like her, who looks like her, who sounds like her, who's a woman, who's the daughter of immigrants. It's a reminder that if you're a nostalgia voter, you're not alone. And about 40 percent of Republicans and Republican leading independents agree with you. I'm sure the Biden campaign couldn't be happier to have her in the race and to stay in.

All right. Yeah, I heard three key points. One, this equivalence that she's done several times. So she attacks Trump as divisive and then argues that Biden is equally divisive. Of course, if the term fascist refers to the sitting president trying to defend democracy, I don't know if that's equivalent to vermin. But that's the pitch she's making to Republicans. That's point one. Point two, as as it's been discussed, I think that line jumped out to Rachel Joy, myself, maybe everyone. Forty percent ain't nothing. Right. And she continues to hit decent losing margins.

in New Hampshire and here, and maybe she thinks she can do that in other states Super Tuesday. That's not nothing. So she's saying, hey, I'm strong against this supposed leader president who's like semi-incumbent, who's weak. And that's point number three. She's basically shading his numbers. She's pointing out that there's a weakness there

to the way that he wants to short circuit the race, the Soviet style comparison, the lack of democracy. Why do you do that? Because you can't win an outright election when she couldn't last time. So those overlap. And I am reminded as we kind of take this all in, she's kind of pulling a Jay-Z who said, we don't believe you. You need more people. Yeah, true. I am.

I don't know that I have as charitable an assessment of the speech. I think on one hand... Speak your truth. Well, I mean, look, I do think she's a good politician, but I found it a bit mushy insofar as... By virtue of staying in this race, she's performing an act of antagonism against Donald Trump on a number of levels, right? Correct, yes. And yet...

And her only fortunes are to be had among people who don't like Donald Trump, who have a problem with him in a meaningful way. And yet the only thing she can say really critical of Donald Trump is we can't afford four more years of Biden's failures or Trump's lack of focus. Let me tell you something. The 40 percent of people who are voting for Nikki Haley tonight are not voting because Trump has not focused. He is focused.

focused like a laser on brown people, on women, on migrants. I mean, like, that's not the problem here. A little less focus might be good. And I just think, you know, Joy, I thought so articulately and eloquently raised, like, this is the Klieg light. This is your moment in the sun, Nikki Haley. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to speak to the heart of the matter, which is

A sizable percent of the Republican electorate thinks this guy is a problem for them. And I didn't hear it tonight. But she also isn't looking to speak to his voters. Joy noted it.

She started her speech talking about her Indian mother, her lawyer mother in India. She is not speaking to mega, mega. Yeah, no, I don't think so. And I thought that was extraordinary. What I felt like I was listening to was a no labels pitch, which in theory speaks to a lot of people. But in practice, the math doesn't. So let's talk about 40 percent for a second. What is what is 40 percent? One of my favorite numbers.

It was enough for Lyndon Johnson to decide not run for re-election. Gene McCarthy went to New Hampshire. He got 42% in 1968 in New Hampshire against the sitting president.

No one thought he was going to get above 20. When Lyndon Johnson saw those results, that was it. It was all over. That's how big and important within your own party when you have presidential standing on the ballot in the primary, as Trump does, essentially incumbency. And South Carolina, South Carolina, this is a hardcore Republican state.

You know, this is not New Hampshire. This is a hard place to get 40 percent against Donald Trump. This is a it's a very troubling night for Donald Trump. There's just the and Rachel's point about the enthusiasm we were hearing in the crowd. I was I was wondering about that, you know, because, you know, the losing hotel ballroom is is never quite that energetic. And and and remember what that energy is about.

We are so thrilled that you're going to keep running against Donald Trump. Her campaign at this point isn't really about policy positions. No one can tell you what's the difference between Haley and Trump on tariffs. They have no idea. What's the difference between them on Israel and Gaza? No one, none of those voters have the slightest idea. The only thing the Haley voter knows in a Republican party is she's running against Donald Trump and the small price.

The small price that Democrats have to pay is that whenever she says a negative thing about Trump in a prepared speech, she's going to try to put Joe Biden somewhere on the other side of that coin. And it's never going to be as bad.

It's never as bad. And when she's out there on the campaign trail and she's asked specific questions by reporters about insane and hateful things that Donald Trump says, she attacks those things very directly and doesn't drag Joe Biden into it. And she's going to Michigan tomorrow. I mean, if you were when you're running a Democratic, you know, Biden-Harris ticket, who do you want to send to Michigan tomorrow? Haley. Can we send Haley? Yeah, she's going. That's the most effective way.

person you can send into Michigan to pull voters away from the Republican side of the ballot in November. Steve Kornacki, I'm only going to you because I just want to, again, my fastidiousness just calling me here because she said 40 percent, which we're all quoting that number. And again, rounding, that's where we're at. But I just want to make sure that like, you know, we're not we haven't gone down to twenty nine and she's sort of run a Donald Trump on us and we're

We're out of the actual the actual number. So quickly, where are we right now? We're at thirty eight point seven. Yeah. I mean, that's what you're seeing is a twenty two point lead for Donald Trump. A little bit less than two thirds is in statewide. I just look here, see what the biggest outstanding where we have the biggest outstanding vote. OK.

So three counties to point to right now. The biggest single source of outstanding vote is in Greenville County. This is in the upstate. This is probably the biggest. This is, you know, you think of the upstate maybe as it is not not as big, but actually, you know, population wise it is. So this is a place we've got a lot of outstanding votes still to come that Haley could do could do fairly well with. But

The second biggest place is this, Horry County, which is producing a massive votes night. And this is the heart of Trump country. Right. This is, you know, Myrtle Beach, Conway. And you see Trump's margin and he's doing better with the same day vote. So he's going to pad it there. And the third one I'd point to, the third biggest source of outstanding vote, is the one that is going to answer that question we've had here about the first congressional district and whether there's any chance Haley...

Yeah. So there it is. All right. Much more to come tonight as Nikki Haley vows to fight on beyond these results tonight in South Carolina. Republican primary. We'll be right back.

You are watching our continuing special coverage of the South Carolina Republican primary. I'm Chris Hayes along with Rachel, Joy, Lauren, Stephanie, Alex and Ari. It is now 9:00 PM here on the East Coast. If you are just joining us,

Donald Trump has won yet another decisive victory in an early nominating contest, although still an open question as to whether he will sweep all 50 of the state's available delegates. For her part, Nikki Haley made good on her word, did not drop out during her concession speech. We now expect her to keep participating in contests at least through Super Tuesday next month.

Haley's Knight reiterating her promise to hold the line as the only significant Republican opposition to Trump. And she noted that while she has not yet won a majority of votes in the state, the minority of Republican primary voters who prefer her to Trump is not an insignificant voting bloc. Today in South Carolina, we're getting around 40 percent of the vote. That's about what that's about what we got in New Hampshire, too. I'm going to count it.

I know 40% is not 50%. But I also know 40% is not some tiny group. There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative.

I said earlier this week that no matter what happens in South Carolina, I would continue to run for president. I'm a woman of my word. The uproarious reception, Rachel, in that room. And as Lawrence noted, not the kind of desultory sort of vibe that you usually get in the room on the night that a candidate has lost by double digits.

Yeah, I mean, to hear the crowd go crazy when she said, we got 40% of the vote tonight, crowd goes nuts. And I told you I wasn't going to drop out. Yeah, we're bolstering you. And I'm a woman of my word. I am not dropping out. Crowd goes crazy. I mean, Nikki Haley is not winning. Nikki Haley is not even closely chasing Donald Trump for the nomination of the Republican Party. But,

She has a reason to be running. She has enthusiasm for people who know exactly from people who support her, who know exactly why she's running. She has donors up the wazoo. She has a very well-funded campaign. She just spent a ton of money in South Carolina, but she's got donations coming in in a way that is absolutely enviable for a presidential campaign right now. And most importantly, she has a rationale for staying in that has nothing to do with winning future contests.

So it's not like, oh, you didn't win the Michigan caucus on March 2nd. Now are you going to drop out? Like, I just don't think that feels like a rational way of approaching the question of Nikki Haley right now. Nikki Haley is running, as we have been describing tonight, to show the weakness of Donald Trump.

as a Republican nominee for president, to give the Republican Party pause about really putting him back up at the top of the ticket. And maybe they don't want her instead. But he if he's trying to run effectively as an incumbent presidential candidate, you can't lose 20 percent to somebody else in Iowa and 40 percent in New Hampshire and 40 percent in South Carolina. And and and you just you just can't. It's not a good look.

That point there about her, there's not this kind of drumbeat that would usually be happening at this point, right? Like, when are you going to drop out? When are you going to drop out? What's next? She's very deftly diffused that because, again, she set the bar for, as your point, a sort of internal rationale for what the campaign. And I want to go now to Haley headquarters, where we have NBC News correspondent Ali Vitale, who is there in that room and is currently with a Haley supporter. Ali.

I think you guys are exactly right to talk about this almost as a crusade of principle right now for Nikki Haley, as opposed to one of political victory. It's clear that she's got a long shot here. But if you looked around this room, I think you're right to point out there was no sense of misery in a loss. This is what they expected to happen. And it's exactly why I have supporters like Brittany, who are next to me, saying that she should continue fighting. I mean, you know Capitol Hill. That's where we first met.

And I'm sure you know Republicans who are basically foot tapping her out the door saying, hey, let's end this. I know those Republicans too. Why is it a good thing that she's staying in right now for the Republican Party? Well, you know, I think that 70% of Americans don't want a Trump Biden matchup.

I think that we saw 40% of Republicans are tired of the way that Trump brings the chaos and the way that he'd be leading our country. So we need something new, something fresh, and Nikki Haley brings that leadership. You know, I wonder as I think about Nikki Haley staying in, you're also a part of a

women as I was standing in this room who were very loud, lending to exactly the mood that Chris and Rachel and the rest of our panel are talking about. There are women fueling this campaign on the ground. I'm so proud to be part of that group, Women for Nikki. You're absolutely right. We are loud and proud.

Hampshire and South Carolina. The reason I keep coming back is because of Nikki Haley and Women for Nikki. And it's a testament to who she is as a leader that these incredible, accomplished women want to support her. It's the idea, too, that you're willing to brave negative 40 degree temperatures because I sure as heck would not have been door knocking for anything in that kind of weather. But the reality is here, too, it does not seem like she can win here. So how do you keep saying it's

okay for the party to have a candidate staying in and kind of dinging the guy who's likely to be the nominee? Well, you know, I don't think 40% is anything to laugh about. That's a lot of people. Not to mention, a lot of Republicans have become independents. That's because of Donald Trump. How do we welcome back those folks into the party? Because he's not going to be able to do that. He's doing terribly with women. He doesn't do well with independents either. And she attracts those kind of people to the party. If we want to be a big umbrella Republican party, if we want to win in November, Nikki's got to stay in.

That's the argument that I have heard her made so many times. The idea that electability in general is better. I think my last question for you is, as someone who knows politics and knows what we talk about with down-ballot races and the impact that a presidential candidate can have on Senate races, House races, you know it's a house.

it's a House majority that's super tight, probably better than almost anybody, having worked for the former speaker. What does it mean if you have Trump at the top of that ticket? Well, I think you see at the RNC, they're absolutely bankrupt. Laura Trump has said that every penny is going to go towards Trump. What does that mean for our down-ballot candidates? That means that they're not going to be able to have the support from the RNC when they traditionally have in the past.

So I think it's important that we get away from this chaos, move towards something that's more regular and normal, and that's going to lead our country in a better path. Brittany, thank you so much for sticking around and chatting with us. And guys, before I toss it back to you, I think the one thing I would say is what I've learned over the course of the last few months is believe Nikki Haley when she says she's staying in. I mean, she laid this out.

out at the beginning of the week. She's now following through saying she's in through Michigan and of course through Super Tuesday. So I'm certainly not canceling any of my many, many flights across the country, at least not yet, because it's clear in talking to her senior staff and of course in talking to the candidate that she's in this until at least Super Tuesday. And maybe at that point, it'll be a natural reassessment. But she really wants to stay in and provide an alternative.

All right. NBC's Ali Vitale at Haley headquarters for now. She'll be on a flight soon, I imagine, racking up those concur logins. Joining us now is former Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, now co-host of the MSNBC podcast How to Win 2024, and former RNC chairman Michael Steele, now the co-host of The Weekend right here on MSNBC. So I want to get a sort of top line takeaway thought from each of you before we wrap tonight. Claire, your thoughts.

Well, it has been a long time since I have heard a national Republican on a stage trying to be inspirational, aspirational, uplifting and unifying. And you notice there were no boos in that room.

She has figured out something pretty basic, and that is those voters who are low information voters who are going to make up their mind at the very end, they are going to be drawn to a candidate who is not like Donald Trump, trashing America, trashing America's institutions, figuring out how to divide us, figuring out how to play just a grievance.

And I think every day she stays in the race. I have to agree. I think it helps Joe Biden because it reminds all of those voters that are not base voters that there is an alternative to that negativity. Michael, what do you think? Yeah, I think that a lot of what we've heard tonight is true about the state of what the campaign is for Nikki.

But I'm sorry, as a former chairman, I'm looking at the practical reality of running a race for the presidency of the United States. And if I'm the national chairman, regardless of if you're a Trump person or not, you've got to start thinking about how this bleeds into April and May as you're getting ready for your convention. So there are a lot of practical applications of what the party needs to do.

irrespective of where the candidates are, which is why you hear some folks inside the RNC who are not necessarily Trump supporters saying, OK, Nikki, yeah, we really appreciate it, but

There are other considerations here. Taking that aside and putting it someplace else for the moment, I think what Nikki's done is she's changed a little bit of that conversation around what is possible. But you're still, Chris, left with the practical reality that after Super Tuesday, then what? You're 17 to 101.

This 40 percent that everyone's talking about, let's keep in mind it's because independents and Democrats are allowed to vote in these primaries up until March 15th. Most Republican primaries are some form of open. And that

makes a big difference in the turnout and who's voting, not necessarily case afterwards. Yeah, that sort of hanging a lantern on that Super Tuesday is key, because she herself has done that, Claire McCaskill, Michael Steele, as always. Thank you both. Really appreciate it. All right, your thoughts.

I mean, I hear Michael. I guess I think it's both, right? I think if the prism is counting the delegates and you're a campaign professional, then sooner or later, it's hard to see the math. But if you're taking that broader view and both can coexist, Lawrence has reminded us on multiple nights that history is instructive.

Donald Trump also...

always tells us about his greatest fears by announcing them. Yes. And the thing that sticks out to me as we talk about all the aftermath of all this is Trump getting up on the podium tonight and saying, first thing, the party is unified like never before. And that is the thing that he's most scared about in this instance. Party is not unified. And also whether the money continues, which, again, as we said, like that really is the big question, because you can't

really do it unless it does continue. My takeaway for the night is that Joe Biden won the night. Donald Trump decisively won South Carolina. That is who Joe Biden wants to run against. And Nikki Haley pulled between 30 and 40 percent of the voters who are not voting for Nikki Haley policies. They were voting against Donald Trump.

You know, I agree with that, that it's a big winning night for the Biden-Harris ticket. Going forward, there's only one exit poll question that matters in the rest of these Republican contests, and that is to Haley voters. How many of you will not vote for Donald Trump? That's the only exit poll question we need. Exit pollsters, make sure you get that. And one final observation, which I saved for last because it's the least likely. A lot of speculation about why is Nikki Haley staying in there?

This is the least likely. It happens once in a great while. She could be doing it because it's the right thing to do. That is one of the possible reasons. I've seen it. It is rare. That could be what you're seeing here. Audible reaction from the panel at that thought. Joy. If I am the Joe Biden campaign tonight, I am going to be doing a deep dive into the 40 percent of Americans

not just South Carolina voters, but about four in 10 in all three of these contests going forward, going back all the way to Iowa, who have rejected Donald Trump, who is running effectively as an incumbent president, but who could not manage to clear more than about six in 10 Republican voters

particularly in the most evangelical 92% white electorate in the first three contests, and that means South Carolina. I'm gonna do a deep dive on them because as Lawrence has said earlier, Joe Biden doesn't need all of them. He needs three to 5% of them to say that Donald Trump is so unacceptable that not only do they prefer Nikki Haley in the primary, they'd rather have Joe Biden than Donald Trump in the general.

That's it. I'm looking at her voters. I'm studying them. If I'm the Biden campaign, he definitely won the night tonight. Rachel, the number that I'm thinking about tonight is $454 million because it's Trump only has 30 days to put that up or put up bond for that. Um,

before Letitia James starts taking Trump Tower or taking 40 Wall Street or taking his other buildings. And we're talking about how Trump wants everything to be unified. He wants to lock up the RNC. He wants to get those joint fundraising operations under his own control. A lot of that is driven by what is now a very, very, very urgent need for a ton of money from him. And that opens up

among other things, a big new line for Nikki Haley to condemn him for his corruption in terms of why he's running and the way he's running the way he is. And that's soon. That's now. That's the next 30 days. The two person race for the Republican nomination continues, as you saw, and so does MSNBC special coverage right after this quick break. Stay with us. Have a question or need how to advice? Just ask Meta A.I.,

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