COLUMBIA, S.C. — Donald Trump’s still-new presidential campaign has yet to attract the kind of deep and broad support among Republican voters that the conservative icon could once take for granted, both in South Carolina and across the country.
Just how vulnerable that makes him in next year’s Republican presidential primary is a matter of debate.
The former president returns to South Carolina on Saturday for an event in the statehouse, his first visit to the Palmetto State since declaring late last year that he would once again seek the presidency. Trump is trying to become the first man since Grover Cleveland in 1893 to be president in two nonconsecutive terms, and so far is the only major Republican candidate to formally enter the 2024 field.
Jumping into the race first, however, hasn’t stopped speculation that Trump will face a serious primary challenge next year, even in a deep-red state like South Carolina.
“I do think his support is obviously not near the levels it was the last time around,” said Warren Tompkins, a veteran GOP strategist in the state. “And I don’t think he’s nearly as strong in South Carolina as he once was.”
A poll of GOP presidential primary voters in the state, conducted by the South Carolina Policy Council and released this week, found that 37% of party voters thought the party should nominate Trump, compared to 47% who thought Republicans should nominate someone else.
In a head-to-head matchup with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump received just 33% support, according to the survey. Fifty-two percent of state GOP voters said they’d back the Florida governor.
However, a January poll of 450 likely primary voters in South Carolina conducted for the Conservative Policy Research Network found Trump leads individual head-to-head matchups against DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.
Trump also gets a 41% plurality of the support when respondents were asked who they would support if the field included the former president, Haley, DeSantis, Scott and former Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump remains a formidable force in the Republican Party, of course, and even GOP strategists who say he’s lost support still readily acknowledge he remains the primary’s clear front-runner. He’s also faced and overcome pervasive skepticism about his candidacy before, including during the 2016 campaign, in which few top Republicans and pundits ever thought he could win.
In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung billed Saturday’s event as a chance to demonstrate his still-strong support in South Carolina.
“President Trump will unveil his leadership teams, which will show the significant support he has from grassroots leaders to elected officials,” Cheung said. “He has continued to dominate in the polls and there is no one else who can generate the type of enthusiasm and excitement like President Trump.”
The former president’s event is nonetheless attracting relatively light interest from GOP leaders in the state.
Many of the elected Republican membership have said they had other previous commitments on Saturday, such as family engagements, and won’t be in attendance. Many members say they’re waiting to see who else gets in the race before picking a candidate to back. Tompkins, for his part, quipped that in the last week alone, he’s heard of roughly 25 GOP and conservative leaders say privately that they didn’t plan to attend, almost all of whom would have been guaranteed to show up at a Trump rally in 2020.
South Carolina House Speaker Murrell Smith’s office said the speaker will attend with his family, but had no further comment.
State Senate President Thomas Alexander, an Oconee Republican, said he plans to attend, but he is still working out his schedule. He said his attendance was out of respect for the former president.
State Treasurer Curtis Loftis also plans to attend, his office confirmed.
Lawmakers, speaking on background, confirmed the Trump campaign has been calling legislators around the state to see if they would endorse the former president, but many are holding off to see how the Republican race shakes out and whether Haley or Scott make a run.
Dave Wilson, of the Palmetto Family Council, who is planning a Vision 24 conference in March to feature potential and declared candidates for president, said the possible inclusion of Haley and Scott in the race plus others such as Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and DeSantis is going to lead to a splintered field and electorate.
Wilson said the Republican Party in the state is not monolithic, demonstrated by the differing factions with the State House of Representatives where the GOP has a super majority.
“Whoever has the pole position does not necessarily win when the checkered flag comes across,” Wilson said. “I think you’re going to have to really watch how the race is run. Who do these different presidential hopefuls appeal to in this state? There’s a lot of different groups right now.”
Trump won the 2016 South Carolina Republican presidential primary, and carried 55% of the vote in the 2020 general election in South Carolina. An April 2022 Winthrop University Poll found Trump had a 53% to 44% favorability rating in the state.
Still Trump, who has the endorsement of Gov. Henry McMaster and U.S. Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., hasn’t seen elected Republican officials flock to his candidacy.
“I think you’ve got folks right now who are saying I don’t want to find somebody who is just going to give me the next four years,” said Wilson, referring to how Trump can only serve one more term. “I think there are a lot of conservatives in South Carolina who are saying who’s going to set the vision and the momentum for the next two decades, not just the next four years.”
“So the question becomes one of, are conservatives going to be looking for a standard bearer that can go eight years and set the tone for where things are going, as we go into 2030, 2040 and beyond?” Wilson added.
Trump’s visit Saturday will gain him press attention, but he needs to do more, including retail politics, to win the state’s primary, Wilson said.
“You’ve got to do more than show up and give a speech and have a press conference,” Wilson said. “This is a job interview and in South Carolina, we expect people to come to the diners to come to the restaurants to get into the nitty gritty of meeting people and talking with people. Not just holding a rally. A rally is not enough to win South Carolina.”
State Sen. Penry Gustafson, a Kershaw Republican, confirmed she would be attending Trump’s event. In her 2020 run where she flipped a seat held by a Democrat, her campaign included Trump’s name and picture on her billboards.
“I appreciate the work he did as president. I liked him as president. I supported him. I voted for him,” Gustafson said. “I would like the opportunity to shake his hand and thank him and I am interested to hear what he has to say, because this is not a rally on Saturday. I’m curious, so why not?”
Gustafson said Trump’s event will be a smaller gathering, which will include a meeting with invited lawmakers ahead of a public portion.
But she wouldn’t say whether she would support the former president’s campaign in the primary.
“I am not endorsing anyone until there’s a Republican nominee,” Gustafson said.
For many lawmakers the idea of driving back to the state capitol building for a weekend event was not appealing. Lawmakers were in session for three days, which included the governor’s Wednesday night State of the State address.
“We get politics hard for three days and it’s hard work and we all got a job back home and family back home,” said state Sen. Greg Hembree, a Horry Republican. “So it would be unusual. I cannot remember the last time I came up here on the weekend.”
Hembree said he has no plan to back a candidate in the presidential race in 2024, saying he would focus on his Senate reelection campaign.
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