GEORGETOWN, S.C. — Jody Nyers, a primary voter from Conway, South Carolina, said she begged Nikki Haley to “stay in it all the way up to the convention.”

Even as Haley weathered another blowout defeat in the Republican presidential primary, this time here in her home state, some GOP voters — and many of her donors — don’t want her to drop out. Anything could happen between now and the convention, Nyers said, between former President Donald Trump’s age and legal troubles. She criticized calls for Haley to cede the nomination to Trump, even those coming from former Haley allies. 

For Haley, a two-time governor of South Carolina and former U.N. ambassador, pressure from within the GOP to quit the race has sometimes come in the shape of condescending dismissals and attacks. That has rankled some women in the party, who say there’s no reason Haley shouldn’t continue to make her case with the funding she has. It’s not a winning strategy, they say, to attack the Republican woman who’s come closest to the presidency at a time when the party is continuing to lose support among women voters and the numbers of women in its leadership pales in comparison to Democrats. 

Haley’s defeat is by all signs a foregone conclusion except at her rallies, where Haley says there are plenty of states still on the map. No polls show a path to victory in any of these states. Trump’s campaign is quick to highlight this, telling the New York Times this week that “Nikki ‘Birdbrain’ Haley still can’t name one state they think they can win.”

On Thursday, two days before the Palmetto State primary, Sen. Tim Scott, a fellow South Carolinian, told reporters after he cast his early vote ballot for Trump that Haley should get “out of the way” in the rematch between Trump and Biden. And that’s weeks after an effort by some at the Republican National Committee to end the primary by declaring Trump the nominee. 

All this is alienating some women in the party, though most, like most Republican men, still back Trump.

“I feel like all of this … ‘Nikki Haley’s a RINO, squash her,’ is really just cutting off our nose to spite our face. Because so many of the women I know really like Nikki Haley, even some who may be voting for Trump,” said Sarah Curran, a former political consultant who is now running for a Greenville, South Carolina, statehouse seat. Curran spent years helping recruit candidates to run for office as Republicans, including Republican women. 

“Whether or not you agree with Nikki Haley’s platform, you can’t help but tip your hat to her for being that trailblazer,” said Curran, who also co-authors a newsletter about conservative women. “So, aside from it just being primary politics at its worst, I think we’re really hurting a lot of people who might want to follow in her footsteps. And I think it could really harm recruitment efforts, at least for the immediate future.” 

Jennifer Lim runs the group Republican Women for Progress, which focuses on recruiting women to run for office and was born as a rejection of Trump by some Republican women. She said Haley’s run has helped counter a general lack of interest in running by women who don’t want to share a ticket with Trump. 

“Seeing something of yourself as a Republican woman in Nikki Haley has energized a lot of women. So, I think seeing how the party reacts and seeing how the RNC tried to jump past the process and make Donald Trump the nominee — that’s gonna really quell some dreams and hurt the momentum,” Lim said.  

Lim’s group endorsed Haley before the Iowa Republican caucuses, arguing she was the best candidate to recommit the party to “the rule of law, democratic institutions and a Big Tent philosophy.” Haley, compared with Trump or Biden, presents a “better path,” Republican Women for Progress said. 

Haley supporters in South Carolina echoed a desire for a new leader in the party and said Haley should keep going — even if she’s not likely to win. 

“I pray she stays in this race to the very last minute. We need somebody new in the White House,” said Nyers, 66, who came out to see Haley at an event in the parking lot of a Myrtle Beach restaurant, complete with protesters bearing Trump flags. 

Asked about comments by party leaders that Haley should drop out, Nyers said “shame on Tim Scott.” In a Trump-Biden rematch, Nyers said, she would stay home on Election Day for the first time in 40 years. 

“She needs to hang in there,” said Janel Rowland, 77, who lives in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. “This is terrible to say because I don’t wish anyone evil — but I keep thinking maybe Trump will have to go to jail and if he does, then she will be our candidate.” Trump could still run from prison, and it’s not clear Haley would get the nomination if he withdrew from the race. 

While South Carolinians elected Haley to lead them in 2010 and again in 2014, the party has shifted since then, both there and in the nation at large. 

“Over the course of the Trump years, the data shows pretty convincingly that part of the reason why Democrats have won is because there’s been a massive shift of women, especially college-educated women,” said pollster Anna Greenberg. It’s a shift driven by White women, one that has become a permanent fixture over the past few elections, and reshaped both parties. 

Trump commands the support of the White working-class voters who now dominate the party’s base. Haley, on the other hand, has attracted more support from the party’s college-educated and more moderate voters. It’s significant that the party’s evolution in the Trump era has included the migration of many college-educated White women away from the GOP. 

Polling from Quinnipiac University published earlier this month showed Biden leading Trump thanks in part to a boost from women voters, 58 percent of whom backed Biden, compared with 36 percent who would support Trump. The poll recorded more women turning to Biden than supported him in the 2020 election, according to exit polling data analyzed by the Center for American Women and Politics.

The same poll found Haley would do better than Trump in a hypothetical general election matchup against Biden and that she would chip at some of the president’s strong support among women voters, with 48 percent supporting Biden and 43 percent choosing Haley. 

Haley regularly points to polls like this in her campaign stops — but it hasn’t seemed to move Republican primary voters away from Trump. It’s not clear that her campaign’s efforts and message will draw enough independents and Democrats in South Carolina to make a difference.

Jill Ehrke, 40, came out to Haley’s event in the Myrtle Beach parking lot, curious to see the candidate in person. Ehrke has generally supported Democrats and voted for Biden in 2020, but said she and her husband worry that the president  “isn’t up to the task.” 

Asked what she thought after the event had ended, Ehrke said she was a no on Haley, and cited two reasons: the remarks felt scripted, and she didn’t mention “women’s rights,” specifically the in-vitro fertilization (IVF) issue. 

Haley on Wednesday made headlines after telling NBC News that she viewed embryos created through IVF as babies, echoing a ruling out of Alabama deeming that embryos in the state have the rights of children. The ruling has already disrupted access to IVF in Alabama. Haley sought to clarify her comments in subsequent interviews, saying she thought the pause of fertility treatments were concerning and that Alabama lawmakers should “go back and look at the law” that paved the way to the court’s ruling. Still, she said, laws about IVF and embryos should be left up to each state, suggesting she wouldn’t champion national protections of the fertility treatment. 

Haley didn’t talk about this issue, or reproductive rights more broadly, on the stump in South Carolina. But it clearly was on the mind of some voters, who brought up the issue in interviews. 

Earlier during a sunny Georgetown, South Carolina, campaign event, local Bryson Allison said she grew up in a conservative family, but in 2016 and 2020 found herself voting for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden because she just couldn’t support Trump. The 32-year-old, who is expecting a baby in a few weeks, was among the younger members of a crowd gathered at the George Hotel to hear Haley speak. 

“I like the life she’s bringing to the campaign, and that she’s not just another old White dude — I’m buying into that,” Allison said. But, she added, she had heard about Haley’s recent comments on IVF and wanted to see more about what Haley had said. Allison and her partner faced some fertility issues, “so that kind of scares me.” 

If Haley ultimately loses the nomination to Trump, Alison said, she would support Biden.