SOUTH CAROLINA’S INK-BLOT TEST — Trump’s defeat of NIKKI HALEY in her home state of South Carolina wasn’t shocking or surprising. The AP declared Trump the winner just seconds after the polls officially closed at 7 p.m. If the current numbers hold, Trump will leave the state with about a 20-point win. There’s a lot to dig through in the results, but let’s start with this: Last night was a huge blow to Haley. South Carolinians know her well. She served two terms as governor and, in this campaign, outspent Trump here and spent weeks barnstorming the state. It was her best chance outside of New Hampshire to win a state. And she lost. Minutes after the race was called, the former president hit the stage — working to get out before Haley was able to declare the evening a success, as in New Hampshire. And surprisingly, Trump made good on his campaign’s promise to not go after Haley anymore — they’re trying to relegate her to gadfly status unworthy of the frontrunner’s attention — making only vague references to the fact that there is still an active primary, and looking ahead to his third nomination. “I just wish we could do it quicker,” Trump told the crowd in a hotel ballroom in Columbia. “I have never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now.” More from inside Trump’s victory party from our Meridith McGraw Is Trump right about that? True, Trump won nearly every single demographic group of Republicans — across age, gender and income. (He just barely lost college graduates.) The anti-Trump vote isn’t large enough to take the nomination away, and this is likely to be over soon. (Read WSJ’s Aaron Zitner and Jack Gillum on this point.) But there’s another way to see things. “If [President JOE] BIDEN was winning only 60 percent, people would be freaking out,” writes FiveThirtyEight’s G. Elliott Morris. And the numbers contain warning signs for the general election, as our colleagues report: “[A]ccording to AP VoteCast, a bit over 1 in 5 GOP primary voters said they would not vote for Trump in November if he was the party’s nominee.” (The NYT asked “nearly 40” Haley voters in SC what they’d do come November, and roughly half said they’d vote for Trump.) The results were a Rorschach test. For Trump’s backers, the numbers are a display of his dominance. For Haley’s supporters, the numbers are a show of her overperformance and ability to cobble together a coalition that a general-election operation would give an intern’s left arm for. At Haley’s election night party in Charleston, the sizable crowd seemed to be celebrating as if she had won. For them, just defying expectations and declaring their anti-Trump sentiment seemed to be enough. (We found multiple Democrats at Haley’s event who were giddy to cast their first anti-Trump vote of the election cycle.) The problem for Haley, of course, is that it isn’t enough, and the fundamentals of the primary have yet to change. When Haley eventually took the stage and got into the meat of her 15-minute speech, the crowd seemed a bit confused. At one point, whispers spread — Is she dropping out? — as Haley said that she has “always seen our state as a family. Families are honest with each other. They say the hard truths.” It sounded like the end of the road. “I’m an accountant. I know 40% is not 50%,” Haley said. “But I also know 40% is not some tiny group. There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative.” For now, that not-tiny group is enough to sustain her, even if it’s nowhere near enough to get the nomination. WHAT’S NEXT: Over the next 10 days, 21 contests will be held. Currently, Haley has promised to go through Super Tuesday, which is March 5. By March 12, nearly 60% of GOP delegates will have been awarded. As our colleague Natalie Allison writes this morning, Haley is hitting the ground running: “She’ll make two stops each in Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia, while also stumping in Minnesota, Colorado, Utah, and Massachusetts, and the campaign is expected to announce events in more states. And Haley is continuing to aggressively raise money, planning to hold at least 10 fundraisers in those 10 days, according to a campaign official granted anonymity to speak freely.” Trump’s campaign is already looking past that. “There is no question that after Saturday there will be a pivot, because there needs to be,” a top adviser to the former president told NBC. “There is a mindset from our perspective that she [Haley] can do whatever she wants. She can do whatever, we don’t care.” Related read: “Some RNC Members Pushing Resolutions to Constrain Trump,” by The Dispatch’s David Drucker Good Sunday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
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