NY Times: Black Dem S.C. Voters Won't Bail Out Haley

Even though South Carolina's open primary system permits voters to take part in one of either party's election, and Nikki Haley could use the crossover support as she is behind by double digits in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination, she has almost no chance of attracting any backing from the large number of black Democrats in the state, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Haley, who was governor of South Carolina from 2011 until 2017, "cast her lot in a very conservative, most right-wing Republican Party when she first ran for office," said the Rev. Joseph Darby, the former first vice president of the South Carolina NAACP who helped lead the organization during Haley's time as governor. "She made no outreach to the African American community. I never thought that she would be one who would reach out to the black community in a meaningful way. And she has not disappointed me in that."

Other black leaders and voters named several reasons for their lack of support, including Haley's refusal to expand Medicaid while she was governor and her backing for a strict abortion ban.

In addition, black voters say that Haley has talked of the need to call out racism but has severely downplayed its pervasiveness in American institutions, even going as far as to say that the United States had "never been a racist country."

"I don't know any black person that is considering voting for her," said Monique Wilsondebriano, 49, a business owner in Charleston and a Democratic voter who said she had received Haley's campaign texts multiple times each day.

Making matters worse for Haley, she was widely criticized when a voter asked her in December to explain the causes of the Civil War and she did not mention slavery.

Even as former President Donald Trump and his supporters have made her and her family targets of racist attacks — such as questioning her citizenship because of her Indian immigrant parents and mocking her birth name, Nimarata Nikki Randhawa, Haley herself has not described the attacks as racist, saying only that she would leave that up people to decide.

• Emerson Poll: Trump Tops Haley by 23 Points in S.C.
• Haley Won't Drop Out, Even With South Carolina Loss