Nikki Haley votes in South Carolina’s Republican primary: Insurgent Republican bracing for defeat is all smiles as she votes with mom Raj and her kids in her wealthy gated community on Kiawah Island

Nikki Haley was all smiles Saturday as she arrived at her polling place in her wealthy gated community in Kaiwah Island, South Carolina, to vote for herself in the state’s Republican primary.

Haley pushed her mother Raj in a wheelchair and was joined by son Nalin, daughter Rena and Rena’s husband Joshua as they voted near the Haleys’ $2.4 million waterfront home that she and husband Michael in October 2019 after leaving her job as an ambassador. the United Nations and joined Boeing’s board of directors.

The 2024 hopeful leaned over her mother to help her vote, then told reporters how her mother had trained to be one of India’s first female judges, but “due to time she was never able to sit on the bench .’

“And so to be able to vote with her, to be able to watch her daughter – to cast a vote for her daughter for president of the United States tells us everything we need to know about how blessed we are to be in this country to be and all It is with great gratitude that I go in today excited,” Haley said. “I always love Election Day.”

She spoke of “passionate” South Carolinians showing up to their polling places — as polls show her trailing former President Donald Trump by an average of 30 points in her home state.

Haley (left) assists her mother Raj (right) at the polling place on Kiawah Island on Saturday. She spoke to reporters about how “blessed we are to be in this country” after watching her mother vote for her, a female candidate, in a U.S. presidential primary.

After the New Hampshire primary, the last contest Haley competed in for delegates, she said she was aiming for a higher percentage of the vote share in South Carolina.

In New Hampshire, she received 43.2 percent of the vote, compared to Trump’s 54.3 percent.

When asked by a reporter outside her polling place if she felt she could improve on that number today, Haley replied, “We’ll find out.”

“We’re going to find out today,” she said. “I think my goal has always been to be competitive in South Carolina.”

Trump and his allies have expressed frustration that Haley has decided to stay in the 2024 race despite losing in every state.

She lost to Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire and failed to defeat “none of these candidates” – a symbolic vote for Trump – in the non-binding Republican primaries in Nevada.

Haley said she will travel this week to Michigan, where voters go to the polls on Tuesday, and that she has already planned campaign stops in Super Tuesday states — despite the fact that she will likely be defeated by Trump in South Carolina today .

Nikki Haley heads to her polling place on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, on Saturday with mother Raj, son Nalin, daughter Rena and her son-in-law Joshua, as she braces for a possible loss to former President Donald Trump in her home state

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley arrives with her mother Raj, son Nalin, daughter Rena and Rena’s husband Joshua to cast their votes in the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina

Nikki Haley and her husband Michael, who is currently on air, purchased a $2.4 million waterfront home in a gated community on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, in 2019 after she left her post at the United Nations and had become a member of Boeing’s board of directors

A real estate listing for the home says it offers water views, a pool and hot tub and has four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. Haley’s parents also live in the home

“People want to see us continue this fight, we owe it to them to continue this fight,” Haley said. “The only thing missing from this is Donald Trump getting on the stage of a debate.”

Haley has gradually taken a more aggressive stance toward Trump, calling him “unhinged” during a campaign stop in Beaufort this week and punching him in the head for comments he made about her husband Michael’s whereabouts.

As a member of the United States Army, Michael Haley has been deployed to Africa.

Asked Saturday if she should have hit Trump harder all along, she replied: “Not at all. ‘

“There were 14 people in this race, I had about a dozen of the guys I had to get rid of first, I had to take them out one by one,” she said. “Now he’s the one-on-one opponent that I have and that’s why you see us showing the contrast between me and him.”

“If I had done that in the beginning, I would have been a Chris Christie,” she added.

Christie, the most outspoken anti-Trump candidate, left the Republican race before the Iowa caucuses but declined to endorse Haley, saying on the hot mic that Haley was “going to get smoked.”