In Nikki Haley’s birthplace of Bamberg, those who know her are with her ‘all the way’ in Saturday’s South Carolina Republican primary, but former President Donald Trump will still likely capture a majority in her home county.
DailyMail.com ventured to the rural town Thursday, for the last day of early voting ahead of Saturday’s pivotal race, where Trump is expected to trounce the former South Carolina governor in her home state.
A slow stream of voters showed up through the afternoon to an annex of the Bamberg County Courthouse – with a majority saying they were backing Trump – but not those who knew Haley personally.
‘I love Nikki like she’s a daughter,’ said 79-year-old Joyce McMillan. ‘She is the most honest, intelligent, fast-learning person I think I have ever met,’ she said of the Republican presidential hopeful.’
McMillan was an accountant for Haley’s parents when they ran a store in downtown Bamberg and taught the former U.N. ambassador the craft as a young girl.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is photographed at a campaign rally earlier this month in her hometown of Bamberg, South Carolina. Most voters at the Bamberg County polling place on Thursday said they were supporting former President Donald Trump
A number of voters DailyMail.com interviewed on Thursday in front of the Bamberg County Courthouse annex had personal connections to Nikki Haley – and those who did were supporting her presidential bid
‘I ended up teaching her all the spreadsheets and the financial stuff of the shop when she was only 13 years old,’ McMillan told DailyMail.com. ‘When I left the business she took over, just at 13, and she’s just super smart.’
McMillan said her daughter and Haley are close friends – and roomed together at Clemson.
‘And she spent as much time at my house as she did at Nikki’s house,’ McMillan recalled.
The former bookkeeper said she also helped Haley and her husband Michael ‘kind of get together,’ but wouldn’t go as far as describing herself as a ‘matchmaker.’
‘I’m just Nikki Haley all the way, Nikki Haley all the way,’ McMillan said. ‘She is the most capable person I could think of that could ever turn this country around.’
Mimbee Ray, a 71-year-old retired office manager, who lives in nearby Denmark, South Carolina told DailyMail.com she’s voting for Haley ‘because I know her.’
‘It’s a wonderful small town story that people would see her in the store and she was actually doing a lot of the books as a child,’ Ray recalled. ‘And so we’ve kind of followed her all along.’
A dilapidated building in downtown Bamberg, South Carolina near where Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley held a rally earlier this month. The rural town is located between Charleston and Columbia
Nikki Haley (right) attends an ‘International Fest’ in Bamberg, South Carolina as a child. Bamberg County voters who had personal connections with Haley were voting for her during Thursday’s early voting period
Ray called Haley a ‘great’ governor of the state. ‘And of course then Trump thought she was great too,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘But then now, like, no.’
The Denmark resident was among the South Carolina voters whose feathers were ruffled over comments Trump made in the state about Haley’s husband, who is deployed.
At a rally in Conway on February 10 Trump floated that Michael Haley is in Africa to get away from his wife.
‘What happened to her husband? What happened to her husband?’ the former president asked.’Where is he? He’s gone. He knew. He knew.’
DailyMail.com reported in January on two alleged affairs Haley had during her time as a state legislator, allegations the candidate has previously denied.
The story got DailyMail.com reporters banished from her campaign trail events ever since.
Nikki Haley (left in pink jumper) in a family photo from the late 70s. She’s with parents Ajit and Raj. Clockwise from her are older sister Simran, big brother Mitti and little brother Simmi. At the age of 13 she was already doing accounting for her parents’ main street store
Nikki Haley in elementary school in Bamberg South Carolina. Haley is in the second row, third from the right, in a striped polo. One voter who’s known Haley since she was a child called her ‘the most honest, intelligent, fast-learning person I think I have ever met’
Ray called Trump ‘too vocal’ and ‘too old’ to get her vote.
‘Especially like criticizing “Where’s her husband?” He’s fighting in our military. And then by saying our military people are stupid or whatever, that was just not good,’ she said.
In a strategy call Friday, Haley’s campaign manager said they would press on through the March 5 Super Tuesday primaries and are looking at ‘key states in March after that,’ but it would take massive upheavel in the race for her to beat Trump.
If that leaves a Trump-Biden rematch, Ray said she ‘probably won’t vote.’
‘I just wouldn’t vote for either of them,’ she said.
Erin Chassereau, a 43-year-old caretaker and part-time welder from Ehrhardt, South Carolina, remembered the time Haley met one of her daughters during a tour of the local middle school.
‘Right down there, Nikki came for a tour and my daughter got a picture in the paper with her,’ Chassereau recalled.
A water tower with Bamberg’s name on it stands outside of town. One voter suggested that the strong Trump support in the county was due to ‘the older generation’ with many young people leaving the area due to lack of industry and jobs
Chassereau said she was casting a vote for the hometown candidate because ‘Trump is a little too far right [and] Biden’s way too far left.’
‘I have nothing but high praise for everything that she’s done,’ she said of Haley. ‘I’ve read up on her. I’ve watched her interviews. She’s well spoken. She knows politics, she knows what she’s doing. And to be a female doing that, she’s great. She’s great. She’s smart. She’s got it going on.’
Unlike Ray, Chassereau said she’d vote for Trump in the general election if Haley isn’t successful in the Republican primary.
‘If Nikki doesn’t win, I’ll have to,’ she said. ‘I hope not. I hope Nikki sticks around, I really do.’
Chassereau said the majority Trump support in the county was likely a product of ‘the older generation’ of residents, as the area lacks jobs, and many homes and businesses are dilapidated.
‘The young people have left. The churches are dying. The churches are dying!’ she said. ‘I think that’s why, I think that most Boomers, and I hate to use that word, are Trump all the way.’
Additionally, during interviews Thursday, every man interviewed by DailyMail.com was supporting Trump, while all the women, except one, were backing Haley.
Kathy, a 76-year-old Trump supporter who declined to give her last name, said she was voting for the ex-president because ‘there’s really nobody else.’
Her top issue, she told DailyMail.com, was the ‘morality of the country.’
‘I believe in God. OK? I’m going to say it right off the bat. I do not believe in abortion. I do not believe in homosexuality. If people want to do it fine. But I do believe Jesus is my savior and, you know, I’m not going to offend him – I’m going to vote the way he wants,’ she said.
Kathy was unbotherd by the thrice-married Trump.
‘So?’ she asked. ‘I mean we’re all going to sin but let’s not say OK this is OK. We’re not going to say it’s OK to kill your babies.’
Kathy said she would never vote for Haley because ‘there’s something fake about her’ and doesn’t like that Democrats are donating to the Haley campaign.
Her husband, 79-year-old Mike from Bamberg County, suggested that because Haley’s parents were immigrants and weren’t initially American citizens, she would be more permissive about mass migration.
Another Trump supporter didn’t approve of Haley’s decision to remove the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s statehouse – a decision she made as governor after the racially motivated mass shooting at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church in 2015.
‘I considered her a little bit. I’m not a prejudiced person. I liked the battle flag she took down because of its historical significance,’ 38-year-old Joshua Creech of Denmark, South Carolina said.
He said that a grandfather from Germany immigrated to the United States before the Civil War.
‘He came over in 1851, took up and fought for the Confederate army for what he believed in,’ Creech said. ‘And he promised God when he came over here that he would build a church if he prospered in the new land and he did so and it’s right there in Ehrhardt,’ Creech added, referencing the town located just down the road from Haley’s Bambert.