Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says it'd take 'a meteor strike' for Nikki Haley to win the state's GOP presidential primary

• Mark Sanford told Politico Magazine it’d take “a meteor strike” for Haley win South Carolina.
• “The name of the game for most people in politics is staying in the game,” Sanford said.
• A recent CBS News/YouGov survey showed Trump leading Haley 65% to 30% among GOP voters in the state.

Former South Carolina Republican Gov. Mark Sanford in a recent interview said that it’d take “a meteor strike” for fellow South Carolinian Nikki Haley to defeat former President Donald Trump in the state’s presidential primary.

During an interview with Politico Magazine, Sanford, a one-time mentor of Haley early in her political career, told the publication that she was behind in the state where she once governed due to the perception of Trump as a winner among GOP voters — along with her struggles with preserving relationships.

Early in the GOP primary, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham endorsed Trump’s 2024 bid. And in recent weeks, a slew of South Carolina lawmakers have touted their endorsements of Trump, a blow to Haley’s momentum in her home state.

“People see that if that’s the train leaving the station, then that’s the one that they want in on,” Sanford told Politico Magazine of Trump’s endorsements. “The name of the game for most people in politics is staying in the game. And therefore, they’re going to tend toward the candidacy that they perceive to be the winning one versus not.”

“I’m not blaming her, but many around the state would argue she hasn’t kept in touch or maintained the relationships that people like in the world of politics,” he continued. “It’s telling that somebody like Mike Johnson, who grew up not that far from Nikki, a longtime personal friend, who ran both of her inaugurals, ended up being finance chair for Tim Scott. How in the world does that happen?”

Both Haley and Trump have crisscrossed the state in recent weeks following the former president’s victories in both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. But Haley has much more to lose should she fall to Trump in her native South Carolina, as the former president would be poised to head into Super Tuesday with a firm delegate lead and existing polling advantages with GOP voters in critical delegate-rich states like California and Texas.

In the latest CBS News/YouGov poll, Trump led Haley 65% to 30% among likely South Carolina GOP primary voters. And a recent Winthrop University poll showed Trump beating Haley 65% to 29% among likely GOP voters.

The latest numbers confirm Sanford’s view that it would take “a meteor strike” for Haley to win the GOP primary.

“I’m not seeing movement,” he told Politico Magazine. “I’ll tell you what could change: Trump beating Trump, which he’s perfectly capable of.”

Before Haley launched her first gubernatorial bid, she found an ally in Sanford, a like-minded conservative outsider who encouraged her to join the race. But over time, Politico Magazine said the relationship between the two South Carolinians became “strained.”

Sanford, a former congressman who served as the state’s governor from 2003 to 2011, became known across the globe after he flew to Argentina in June 2009 to see his then-lover, María Belén Chapur, while he was still married to his then-wife, Jenny Sanford.

He had instructed his staff to tell Jenny Sanford he was “hiking on the Appalachian Trail” if she inquired about his whereabouts. Upon returning to South Carolina, he admitted to the affair during a news conference at the state capitol in Columbia.

In Sanford’s 2021 book, “Two Roads Diverged,” the governor said he “caused incalculable pain” in his handling of the affair with Chapur, writing that Jenny Sanford in May 2009 had sought a trial separation and had also found letters between her husband and Chapur the year prior.