Nikki Haley, Donald Trump’s only conservative challenger, is trying to make the case that she will carry the Republican Party’s colors in November’s presidential election, even as polls show her losing the party primary in her home state of Carolina. AFP.

“One on one, Trump does not beat Biden. I beat Biden,” the former UN ambassador said on Thursday.

The 52-year-old former South Carolina governor is now the only Republican challenging the party’s nomination of his former leader and hopes his home state will help her win the Feb. 24 primary.

Her speech is aimed at moderate Republicans and undecided Democrats. Nikki Haley highlighted the “chaos” of Donald Trump’s first term and criticized the advanced age of the two men, each of whom is running for a second term: the Republican tycoon is 77 years old and Democratic President Joe Biden is 81 years old.

It promises to be an uphill battle. A Washington Post-Monmouth University poll released Thursday shows Donald Trump leading her by a wide margin with 58 percent of the vote (Nikki Haley’s 32 percent).

Values: the choice between “republican and fascist”

Her supporters, gathered at Doc’s Barbecue in Columbia, South Carolina, still want to believe, with one summing up the race as a choice between “a Republican and a fascist.”

“I really like her values,” says Sarah Rock, who wears an “I Choose Nikki” badge on her T-shirt.

“He’s not going to get into a criminal case, and I think that’s what our country needs,” she said, referring to court cases involving Donald Trump.

Jodi Lowman of Lexington, South Carolina, says she enjoyed Nikki Haley’s campaign speech.

“Trump is going to drag us right into another world war if Biden doesn’t do it first,” he raged.

“No water for Nikki”…

But the shadow of the ultra-favorite of the right is never far away. Outside Nikki Haley’s rally, a van taunted her supporters with Trump flags.

Donald Trump is already the winner of the Republican race thanks to his victories in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, where Haley hoped to attract independent voters.

Unlike Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, she refused to back down and let Trump focus on his duel with Joe Biden.

Persistent, she shrugged off a series of polls that suggested she would have a better chance than Donald Trump of defeating the incumbent in a final runoff.

Therefore, Trump is forced to continue to fight for South Carolina at a time when he prefers to devote his resources to the national campaign.

“I wouldn’t give Nikki water even if she was thirsty,” Regina Siddique, a 56-year-old caregiver, said after a press conference with Republicans close to Trump on Thursday on the steps of the local Capitol.

Wearing a “Team Trump” T-shirt, Ms. Siddique said she had voted Democratic for 20 years but now wanted to “make America great again,” as the former president put it.

Nikki Haley, on the other hand, “didn’t do anything for us,” she says.

Attacked by Trump / The subject of slavery

The former governor faced controversy during the campaign, especially when he avoided saying that slavery was the root of the American Civil War.

That’s a big issue in South Carolina, a state with a large black population that Democrats are courting.

Haley’s insistence on staying in the race clearly angered Donald Trump.

In an angry speech after his victory in New Hampshire, he surrounded South Carolina leaders, including the current governor, and criticized Nikki Haley for not pledging allegiance to him.

He also regularly refers to the foreign origins of this daughter of Indian immigrants by using (and sometimes mispronouncing) her name. She was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa and took her husband’s name.

For her part, Nikki Haley says she has no “personal issues” with him, but insists she will continue to fight in South Carolina and elsewhere as long as she can close the gap between herself and her opponent.