Former President Donald Trump gained the Republican presidential major in South Carolina on Saturday, defeating the state’s former governor and his final remaining GOP challenger, Nikki Haley

Former President Donald Trump gained the Republican presidential major in South Carolina on Saturday, defeating the state’s former governor and his final remaining GOP challenger, Nikki Haley, the Related Press reported. The previous president has swept the early states, and he’s barreling towards the nomination at the same time as a majority of delegates have but to be awarded.

Minutes after the race was referred to as, the previous US president in Columbia mentioned, “This was a bit ahead of we anticipated.” Trump additional added that he had “by no means seen the Republican Social gathering so unified as it’s proper now.”

There are a complete of fifty delegates up for grabs. The statewide winner will take the entire at-large delegates, whereas the winner of every congressional district will earn three delegates. The competition was open to all registered voters. However anybody who voted within the state’s Feb. 3 Democratic presidential major is just not eligible to take part within the GOP major.

Main media networks report that with this victory, Trump may even win all 29 of the state’s at-large delegates. The remaining 21 delegates will likely be awarded based mostly on the Congressional district outcomes, with three delegates awarded to the winner in every of the state’s seven districts, CNN mentioned.

A candidate wants 1,215 delegates to bag the get together’s nomination. To this point Haley has gained 17 delegates and Trump has gained 92. “I simply gained the South Carolina major,” Trump mentioned in his victory speech in Columbia, South Carolina, quickly after, as preliminary studies mentioned that Trump was main by Haley by almost 30 p.c.

There was no quick response from Haley, who was initially scheduled to talk at 8 pm native time.