What Black South Carolina voters really think of Nikki Haley
Former governor Nikki Haley is likable to some Black South Carolina voters, but ‘mixed feelings’ persist, leaving an ominous feeling ahead of Saturday’s GOP primary.
As a state representative in South Carolina, Samuel Rivers Jr. worked with then-Gov. Nikki Haley. He appreciates his time with her, admires her commitment and respects her accomplishments. Still, when the Republican primary takes place in the state on Saturday, Rivers will likely vote for Donald Trump.
Nothing against Haley, said Rivers, a fellow Republican. “I’m extremely proud that we have someone from South Carolina who is on a national stage, who came from the small town of Bamberg,” he said. “It’s telling the average person who has brown skin or Black skin that you can do it, that it’s possible.”
But Rivers, who served in the state House from 2012 to 2018, stopped short of going all in on Haley’s bid for the presidency. “There are mixed emotions about her in the Black community,” he said.
And that does not bode well for Haley, who was governor from 2011 to 2017 and did not garner much Black voter support in her 2014 re-election bid, when she received 6% of the Black vote, while her Democratic opponent, then state Sen. Vincent Sheheen, got 92% of the Black vote.
Haley engendered a connection to Black South Carolinians with her empathy after a white supremacist shooter killed nine Black people in 2015 at the historic Mother Emanuel church in Charleston. Soon after, she signed legislation to have the Confederate flag taken down at the state Capitol — pleasing Black activists. But it appears she has been unable to garner a coalition of Black voters as she seeks the Republican nomination to run for the nation’s highest office, according to people who spoke with NBC News.
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