Former President Donald Trump won the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina on Saturday, defeating the state’s former governor and his last remaining GOP challenger, Nikki Haley, the Associated Press reported. The former president has swept the early states, and he is barreling toward the nomination even as a majority of delegates have yet to be awarded.
Minutes after the race was called, the former US president in Columbia said, “This was a little sooner than we anticipated.” Trump further added that he had “never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now.”
There are a total of 50 delegates up for grabs. The statewide winner will take all of the at-large delegates, while the winner of each congressional district will earn three delegates. The contest was open to all registered voters. But anyone who voted in the state’s Feb. 3 Democratic presidential primary is not eligible to participate in the GOP primary.
Major media networks report that with this victory, Trump will also win all 29 of the state’s at-large delegates. The remaining 21 delegates will be awarded based on the Congressional district results, with three delegates awarded to the winner in each of the state’s seven districts, CNN said.
A candidate needs 1,215 delegates to bag the party’s nomination. So far Haley has won 17 delegates and Trump has won 92. “I just won the South Carolina primary,” Trump said in his victory speech in Columbia, South Carolina, soon after, as initial reports said that Trump was leading by Haley by nearly 30 percent.
There was no immediate reaction from Haley, who was initially scheduled to speak at 8 pm local time.
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