Columbia, SC (AP) – Donald Trump is using a college football rivalry weekend to cheer on his supporters in a state and region crucial to his presidency, while potentially defeating his Republican rival Nikki Haley in her home state.
The former president and current leading contender for the 2024 Republican nomination will be in attendance Saturday when South Carolina hosts Haley’s alma mater Clemson in the annual Palmetto Bowl.
Trump’s campaign did not provide details of his trip. But if his trip is anything like his trip to Ames, Iowa, for the Iowa State-Iowa game, he’ll visit pregame parties, maybe stop at a fraternity and then join the 80,000-plus in Williams-Brice Stadium. .
“We do it in a big way in the South,” said Brandon Beach, a Georgia state senator and top Trump supporter who traveled with him to a game in Ames in September. “President Trump knows he can connect with people, and he will connect with them.”
Haley is a member of Clemson’s board of trustees and an avid Clemson sports fan, but her campaign has not said whether she will attend the game. Asked about the upcoming primary showdown with Trump on her home turf, spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas called Haley “the only candidate with momentum” and cited her previous victories in legislative and gubernatorial contests.
He said, “South Carolinians know what it takes for their governor to win, because they’ve seen him beat the odds before — not just once, but twice.”
Haley was governor of South Carolina until Trump appointed her as ambassador to the United Nations in 2016. Trump maintains wide polling leads over Haley and others at the state and national levels.
“In 2016, South Carolina gave us 44 of 46 counties — that’s not bad,” Trump said at a state GOP dinner in August. “I can’t wait to win all 46. We want to win all 46.”
South Carolina is fourth on the GOP voting calendar behind Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, with the state’s first Southern primary being held on February 24, 2024. Many southern states will claim March 5 as part of Super Tuesday. A slate that includes more delegates than any other day in the primary campaign.
Trump’s South Carolina and Super Tuesday performance in 2016 gave him a delegate lead he would never relinquish.
Haley has responded to Trump in recent weeks by stressing his roots while campaigning in Iowa, which begins voting nationally with his caucus on Jan. 15.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said recently in Ankeny, predicting a strong showing in the caucuses. “Then I go face-to-face with Trump in my home state of South Carolina. And we take it.
Trump’s appearance at the state’s biggest sporting event of the year will draw a friendly crowd.
Major public universities, especially in the South, bring together much of the business, civic, and political leadership of a state that spans from small towns to cities.
Besides, major college football games are filled with the kind of pageantry — giant American flags on the field during pregame festivities, military flyovers manned by home team alumni to end the national anthem — that Trump wants.
“These are American values,” Beach said, noting he saw the same thing at Ames when some fans chanted “USA! USA! USA!” When he saw the former President. “He realizes how much Trump loves our country. … He wants what he wants: good energy policy, a secure border, to be safe.
Trump, who tried to buy an NFL team in the 1980s and was part of a failed alternative league, has enjoyed sports cameos over the years. But college football has given him his most generous welcome, including the 2018 national championship game in Atlanta and the 2019 Alabama-LSU regular season game in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
That Alabama game came just days after Trump was cheered on by professional baseball fans while attending the Washington Nationals’ World Series home game.
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