Tactical voting for Haley by non-Republicans evident in Mount Pleasant, but Trump enthusiasm clear elsewhere in state.
CHARLESTON, S.C.—The earliest early voting totals reveal that South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary has already attracted many more participants than the Democratic primary earlier this month, and not by a small margin.
As of Day 3 of the early voting period, which lasts from Feb. 12 through Feb. 22, the South Carolina Election Commission recorded 50,855 votes, more than the 48,213 recorded over the entirety of the Democratic presidential primary’s early voting period of Jan. 22 through Feb. 2.
It’s a sign, albeit an unsurprising one, that even as former President Donald J. Trump’s lead mounts, his race against former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is still of greater interest than incumbent President Joe Biden’s mostly unchallenged attempt at being renominated.
But outside the Wando Mount Pleasant Library, an early voting site near Charleston, on Feb. 17, even Ms. Haley’s supporters were pessimistic about her chances in a state she once governed.
Trey Bryant, a Haley voter from Mount Pleasant, didn’t equivocate when asked if he thinks she could win his state: “No, I don’t.”
“I’m hopeful that she can win the nomination,” he told The Epoch Times.
‘Good Humor’ in Purple–Red ‘Haley Country’
The library is one of just three early voting centers in Charleston County, population 419,279 as of 2022.
“People are in good humor,” said Kate Everingham, the site manager for the early voting site and a representative for the Charleston County Board of Elections, in an interview with The Epoch Times.
On the afternoon of Feb. 17, a steady stream of voters bustled in and out, mixed with families checking out books and older adults commenting on a screening of a new Metropolitan Opera production of Georges Bizet’s “Carmen.”
Robert Gair, another Haley voter from Mount Pleasant, told The Epoch Times he happened to cast a ballot because he was there to see the opera.
He said he would never vote for President Trump, calling him a “criminal.” A hypothetical choice between President Biden and Ms. Haley was, in his judgment, “a tossup.”
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