By Meg Kinnard and Will Weissert, Associated Press
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is looking to win his fourth straight primary state on Saturday over Nikki Haley in South Carolina, aiming to hand a home-state embarrassment to his last remaining major rival for the Republican nomination.
Trump went into Saturday’s primary with a huge polling lead and the backing of the state’s top Republicans, including Sen. Tim Scott, a former rival in the race. Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador under Trump, has spent weeks crisscrossing the state that twice elected her governor warning that the dominant front-runner, who is 77 and faces four indictments, is too old and distracted to be president again.
In all but one primary since 1980, the Republican winner in South Carolina has gone on to be the party’s nominee. But Haley has repeatedly vowed to carry on if she loses her home state, even as Trump positions himself for a likely general election rematch against Biden.
As Haley voted at her polling place on Kiawah Island, the private residential community where she lives, she said she faced the day with “great gratitude.” Haley pressed her argument that she is the alternative to “the two most disliked politicians in America” in Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden.
“There is a choice,” Haley said, speaking alongside her children and mother. ”We can leave the drama and the chaos, and we can leave the incompetence, and we can go to something that is normal.”
Trump, who held a rally and addressed Black conservatives at a gala Friday, was in Maryland for an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday before returning to South Carolina. His campaign issued a statement saying Haley was “no longer living in reality.”
“The primary ends tonight and it is time to turn to the general election,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement released as voting was…
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