Big win for Donald Trump as he beats Nikki Haley in South Carolina primary

Nikki Haley suffered a severe blow to her home state on Saturday when she lost the South Carolina Republican primary to former President Donald Trump. Her future in the race is seriously doubted as a result of the loss.

Not long as the votes closed at 7 p.m., the Associated Press, CNN, and NBC projections bemoaned Trump's victory. The result was expected because Trump was leading the campaign and declared it over in the polls. Even though there are still many delegates up for grabs, the former president has already won all of the early states and is expected to win the nomination.

“We expected this, but not this soon,” he said in Columbia, S.C., shortly after his victory was announced. He said the Republican Party was “more united than ever before.”

Since his 2016 campaign, Trump has been extremely popular in South Carolina, where he handily defeated Haley, the state's governor and ambassador to the United Nations during his presidency.

Haley had hoped to overcome the odds, but her defeat among the voters who are most familiar with her would raise more doubts about her candidature.

Any voter who is registered to vote in South Carolina may participate in the party's primary according to the open primary system used there. Limited to one party's race, the state's Republican primary is scheduled for this Saturday, after the Democratic primary on February 3.