Trump Will Become Presumptive Nominee in Next 4 Weeks, Campaign Says

(Left) Former President Donald Trump at his primary party in Nashua, N.H., on Jan. 23, 2024. (Right) Former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley at her primary rally in Concord, N.H., on Jan. 23, 2024. Chip Somodevilla, Brandon Bell/Getty Images

CHARLESTON, S.C.–Former President Donald Trump’s team has fired a preemptive strike against challenger Nikki Haley in advance of her “state of the race” speech on Tuesday afternoon.

In a campaign memo issued Tuesday morning, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wrote, “The end is near for Nikki Haley.” They say the former United Nations ambassador is poised for a humiliating primary election loss this Saturday in her home state of South Carolina, where she had served as governor.

In a speech on Monday in Greer, S.C., Ms. Haley vowed she would show up for a campaign stop in Michigan on Feb. 25, the day after the primary.

The remark was an apparent attempt to head off rumors that she might be announcing an exit from the race. People started buzzing about that possibility after her campaign announced she would be making a “state of the race” speech in Greenville.

The Trump team memo accuses Ms. Haley’s team of refusing to face reality. It outlines a “very serious math problem” that Ms. Haley faces in the delegate count, which will determine who wins the Republican presidential nomination.

President Trump has already won 63 delegates as a result of previous contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

“If we were overly generous and applied a ‘worst-case’ model reflecting Nikki Haley’s loss in New Hampshire across the remaining states and congressional districts, President Trump would earn 114 delegates the week following the South Carolina Primary,” the memo said.

The memo also predicts President Trump would win at least 773 delegates on Super Tuesday (March 5), when more than a dozen states and territories will hold Republican presidential preference contests.

“President Trump would win an additional 162 delegates the following two weeks, after Super Tuesday. And, on March 19, under this most generous model for Nikki, President Trump would win the Republican nomination for president,” the memo predicts.

In response to the memo, Ms. Haley’s campaign pointed to a speech delivered later by the former South Carolina governor, during which she vowed to stay in the race no matter the result in Saturday’s primary.

“I refuse to quit. South Carolina will vote on Saturday. But on Sunday, I’ll still be running for president. I’m not going anywhere,” she said in Greenville, South Carolina.

The Trump team maintains that, based on “current data, both public and private,” which is less favorable to Ms. Haley, President Trump will have locked up 1,223 delegates by March 12. That exceeds the number of delegates needed to become the GOP nominee.

“Before March Madness tips off next month, President Trump will be the Republican nominee for president,” the memo said.

Despite the assertions that Ms. Haley’s campaign is in its death throes, President Trump’s campaign announced a series of new pre-primary South Carolina events featuring his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, and former GOP challenger Vivek Ramaswamy. The former president is also scheduled for three appearances in the Palmetto State before the primary.

President Trump’s team denounced Ms. Haley’s campaign and its supportive Political Action Committees for allegedly soliciting and accepting donations from “national leftists” and for alleged attempts “to hijack GOP contests across the country by courting Democrats,” the memo said, adding, “That’s a stain that doesn’t go away.”

The memo ends by stating that President Trump’s team intends to “acknowledge that Nikki Haley is irrelevant and not newsworthy.”

The Trump team also suggests that the Republican National Committee should unite with President Trump’s campaign and begin focusing more strongly on “convention planning, fundraising, strategy, and state party tactics.”

They say it’s time to concentrate on winning the Nov. 5 general election and ensure that “the case to fire [Democrat President] Joe Biden is prosecuted.”

Nathan Worcester contributed to this report.