LEXINGTON, S.C. — This county may have been the launching point for Nikki Haley’s political career, but many of these voters are saying they don’t want her back as president.
On the final Saturday of early voting ahead of South Carolina’s Republican primary, people lined up to cast ballots at a steady pace at the County of Lexington Auxiliary Administration building, just a 10-minute drive from Haley’s old house. A sampling of these Republican voters told Annenberg Media that while they liked Haley as governor from 2011 to 2017, they aren’t ready to make her president.
“She was an excellent governor,” said Gretchen Parker, a retiree who has lived in South Carolina for 27 years. Parker and her husband, Roy, said they both voted for former President Donald Trump.
Haley is the last person standing between Trump and the Republican nomination to challenge President Joe Biden. Even though Trump has been leading her in state polls by more than 20 points, Haley has promised she would stay in the race past the South Carolina primary and even beyond Super Tuesday on March 5.
But a loss in South Carolina — especially in Lexington County, where Haley was first elected to the state’s House of Representatives in 2004 — would be a strong rebuke from the voters who know her the best.
“She wasn’t good with business,” Gretchen Parker said. Parker did not specify what she didn’t like about Haley’s business record, but across the campaign trail, Haley has touted her economic record as governor— including calling South Carolina “the Beast of the Southeast.”
Like many other Lexington County voters on this cloudy Saturday, the Parkers’ biggest concern is border security. Migrant crossings at the southern border hit a record high in 2023.
“All these people are just coming in and over-running us. I’m afraid we’re gonna lose our culture. I’m afraid for young people who have to live with the changes that are happening,” Gretchen Parker said.
Roy Parker said that he believes Trump will reinstate his more strict border policies and continue the construction of a border wall upon which he had based his 2016 campaign.
“Trump delivers on what he says he will deliver on. So often politicians promise one thing and do something different,” he said.
Trump did construct around 450 miles of barriers along the southern border, but the majority of that was reinforcing a structure that was already in place, according to the BBC.
The economy is a top priority for Hillary Higgins, 38, a local dance studio owner and single mother of three.
“Where we are now is the most difficult it’s ever been in my entire life. I’ve never lived during a time where things were so out of reach, affordability-wise,” Higgins said just after casting her ballot.
Higgins, who lives in Batesburg-Leesville, a small town of around 5,000 people, said she can’t buy a house because interest rates are so high. There’s a limited inventory of houses in her town, and when one goes on the market, it’s too expensive.
“They’re two to three times as much as they were just 10 years ago,” Higgins said.
Higgins voted for Trump and said she doesn’t like Haley because she’s “wishy-washy.”
“She doesn’t feel like she’s going to be a strong candidate for me, in that I think she says what she thinks that people want to hear,” Higgins said.
Although Haley did serve as U.N. ambassador during Trump’s administration, Higgins sees her as weak on foreign policy. Higgins said that her grandparents served in World War II and that shaped her view on foreign affairs.
“There’s been a lot of conversation about international relations over the years in my household, and really looking at how the president presents themselves makes a big difference in the outcome,” she said. “I just don’t know that [Haley] would be the right one for that.”
Higgins said she’s confident Trump will handle conflicts such as the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war. “He’ll be able to defuse the situation and bring a little more peace to that area,” she said.
Foreign affairs is also a top concern for Christopher Hopkins II, 18, who was there with his dad to cast a ballot for the first time.
Hopkins criticized Biden’s 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
“We drew out, you know, we quite literally got the Taliban roller skating down the street now,” Hopkins said.
In November 2023, a video of Taliban security forces patrolling the city on rollerblades went viral.
Hopkins said he thought that people in Lexington County would vote for Haley, “because she’s local,” but he voted for Trump.
Kim Holston, 38, an insurance claims adjuster, grew up in the Lexington area and said she voted for Haley.
“I think that she handled a lot of terrible things in the state of South Carolina with a lot of grace. And so I think that she can do the same as president,” Holston said.
Holston said she didn’t vote in the 2020 election and won’t vote this year if Trump is the nominee again.
“Right now, Trump just says whatever comes to his mind, and it’s not exactly great for the country,” she said.
Of the dozens of people casting ballots for early voting Saturday, Holston was one of the few voters Annenberg Media could find in Haley’s old stomping grounds who said they had chosen her.
“We like Haley, we just don’t think she’s ready for primetime,” Gretchen Parker said.