By Gram Slattery
GREENVILLE, South Carolina (Reuters) – Republican candidate Nikki Haley pledged to press ahead with her long-shot presidential bid on Tuesday, saying “we don’t anoint kings in this country” and that she had no intention of dropping out after Saturday’s nominating contest in South Carolina.
“I feel no need to kiss the ring. And I have no fear of Trump’s retribution,” she said in a speech in Greenville, South Carolina, where she is expected to lose to former President Donald Trump in this weekend’s primary in her home state.
Trump, who has an overwhelming lead in national polls, and his allies have ratcheted up pressure on Haley to drop out of the race after she lost the first four nominating contests by huge margins. Her insistence on continuing her White House bid has angered Trump’s campaign, which has mocked her and threatened to cut off donors who continue to give her money.
“We don’t anoint kings in this country. We have elections,” Haley said in her speech. “That’s why I refuse to quit. South Carolina will vote on Saturday. But on Sunday, I’ll still be running for president. I’m not going anywhere.”
Haley, who served as governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017, is down some 60 points to Trump nationally, according to an average maintained by polling and analysis website FiveThirtyEight. Earlier on Tuesday, Trump’s campaign released a memo arguing that the former president was on track to mathematically clinch the nomination by March 12 based on current data.
While Haley indicated earlier in the race that she thought she could beat Trump in her home state, polls have consistently shown her down more than 30 percentage points there.
As a result, deep-pocketed allies have begun to turn their attention to several states and territories that vote in early March, some of which have a high proportion of well-educated suburbanites. That demographic made up Haley’s core base of support in the opening primary contests.
Haley’s campaign itself has rolled out leadership teams in at least seven states that vote on March 5 – a date known as “Super Tuesday” – as well as a leadership team in Georgia, where voters go to the polls on March 12. Two of those teams, in Texas and Vermont, were announced on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery, editing by Ross Colvin and Bill Berkrot)
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