South Carolina GOP Wants to Cancel Its 2020 Primary to Hand the State to Trump
In what is maybe the least surprising news of the day, South Carolina’s conservatives are all ready to go all-in on defending Donald Trump in 2020.
South Carolina’s presidential primary has historically been slotted as the third overall primary on the national calendar and the first in the South. Realizing that they have the unique opportunity of kicking off the 2020 primary season, the Republican leadership in the South Carolina is prepared to cancel their primary altogether and call it for Trump, according to the Washington Examiner.
The Examiner spoke with South Carolina GOP chairman Drew McKissick, who told the outlet the party is currently deciding whether they want to even hold a preliminary vote. The upshot for them—“them” being conservatives who love the current commander-in-chief—is that Trump wouldn’t have to worry about campaigning in a state that he will almost certainly win. He also wouldn’t face the threat of a theoretical challenge from the state’s former governor, Nikki Haley, who suddenly has a lot of time on her hands.
“We have complete autonomy and flexibility in either direction,” McKissick told the conservative news outlet. “Considering the fact that the entire party supports the president, we’ll end up doing what’s in the president’s best interest.”
This isn’t the first time the Palmetto State’s conservatives have gone ride-or-die with a bumbling asshat of an incumbent. In 2004, the South Carolina GOP cleared a path for George W. Bush, with the then-executive director of the state party telling the Examiner that despite some internal complaints, they were simply prepping for the inevitable. The paper reported that the final decision on the 2020 primary will be made at some point during the summer of 2019, though it seems like the state is neatly wrapped up for the nation’s Very Big Boy.
Put simply by the preceding state GOP chairman: “Pigs will fly before the South Carolina GOP allows Trump to have opposition.”