‘Bloodsport, bare-knuckled, knives out. All of them are actually true’

EXETER, N.H. — South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster had a clear goal when he joined Donald Trump on stage in New Hampshire on Saturday night: Remind Nikki Haley there’s a political buzzsaw waiting for her at home.

The first-in-the-primary on Tuesday is Haley’s best shot to blunt Trump’s all-but-inevitable march to the Republican nomination. But her window is shrinking here after an underwhelming Iowa caucus result. Even if Haley does survive the New Hampshire primary - and that's a big if given the state of the latest polling - the path forward is even more treacherous: Trump beats Haley by as much as 40 percentage points in her home state of South Carolina according to the latest polls.

“What is that, other than a massive wood chipper of multiple proportions?” said Winthrop University pollster Scott Huffmon.

Haley has long pitched South Carolina as the ace up her sleeve in the presidential race, a place she’s won statewide twice and knows like the back of her hand. The Palmetto State could just as easily be the death knell for her presidential campaign, though, thanks to the state’s penchant for “bloodsport” politicking and Trump’s sky-high popularity with Republican primary voters.

Haley is likely to head into South Carolina having lost to Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire, and South Carolina Republicans have been chattering this week about whether Haley wants to end her presidential campaign with an embarrassing loss in her home state, or even her home district.

“It’d be a tough nut, right?” said Chip Felkel, a Republican consultant from South Carolina. “It’d be a tough one to swallow if you end up getting waxed in your own state.”

Haley’s best hope is that New Hampshire will give her a shot of political adrenaline on Tuesday night if she can win over enough independents and anti-Trump Republicans to get within striking distance of the former president. Haley has said the way to do that is to get the race down to two candidates. She got her wish on Sunday when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called it quits.

“Can you hear that sound? That’s the sound of a two-person race,” Haley said to a cheering crowd in Exeter, although the jury is still out on whether DeSantis’s exit, and endorsement, will ultimately help Trump. Her campaign warmed up the lively crowd by tossing T-shirts to the tune of “Cotton Eye Joe” and bringing Haley endorser Judge Judy on the stage.

Trump is eager to whittle the contest down to one by the time Feb. 24 rolls around, and it seems he’ll do almost anything to get it done. Along with McMaster, Haley’s successor in the South Carolina governor’s office, Trump welcomed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Reps. William Timmons, Joe Wilson and Russel Fry to the stage, among others from Haley’s home state.

The South Carolina contingent smiled as the crowd booed Haley. McMaster even enlisted the Spice Girls hit song “Wannabe” to make his point that his constituents “really really want” to vote for Trump — not Haley.

Trump made no illusions about what he was doing.

“I’m kissing ass,” the former president told the crowd, explaining why he had South Carolinians by his side in New Hampshire. The Trump campaign offered the South Carolinian congressmen to press afterward to answer questions about why they were sticking with Trump. And this was just 48 hours after Trump rolled out the endorsement of former rival Sen. Tim Scott - a South Carolinian Haley first appointed to his job.

Haley took the home state rivalry in stride on Sunday, saying that she didn’t expect lawmakers to endorse her after she held them accountable as governor, or McMaster after she beat him in 2010. Haley also brushed off Trump’s self-described ass-kissing. She already has a rally booked for North Charleston on Wednesday, a day after the New Hampshire primary.

“The elected political class has never liked me and they will never endorse me and I don't want it because I'm fighting for normal people,” Haley said. “I know the people of South Carolina, I respect them. They want to see hard work … They don’t want to see kissin’ ass.”

Things will not be easy when Haley comes home later this week, according to political watchers who know the state. Haley faced a nasty primary in 2010 to get elected and “didn't play well with others politically” once she was in office. “There’s just no love lost there,” Felkel said.

The Haley campaign views the former governor’s reputation as an asset, saying that she got elected as an “anti-establishment, conservative candidate.”

“She signed pro-life legislation, cracked down on illegal immigration, and took on both parties over spending and transparency issues. They know she has what it takes to win because they’ve seen her beat the odds before — not just once, but twice — and she’s going to fight for their votes again,” Haley spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said in an email.

The next four weeks will certainly be a fight. The Trump campaign said on Sunday that if Haley comes in second in New Hampshire, which polls say she will, she should drop out and endorse him. Otherwise, she should prepare to be “absolutely DEMOLISHED and EMBARRASSED in her home state,” the Trump campaign memo said.

“Think of every hackneyed cliche about South Carolina politics you've ever heard. Bloodsport, bare-knuckled, knives out. All of them are actually true,” Huffmon said. “She's gonna come down here having strong favorability with the voters. That doesn’t necessarily mean they want her more than Trump.”

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Nikki Haley Faces ‘Massive Wood Chipper of Multiple Proportions’ in South Carolina