New poll shows Haley trails by 23 points in South Carolina’s primary. Can she close the gap in time?

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD)- As former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley pushes to close the gap between her and former President Donald Trump in her home state’s Republican primary, a new poll shows she’ll need a little more help.

Less than a week until the first-in-the-south primary, a survey from Emerson College Polling/The Hill released Tuesday found that support for Haley’s campaign is growing with 35% of decided South Carolina voters saying they would support her to Trump’s 58%.

The 23-point deficit is several points lower than it was in Emerson College Polling’s January survey, which was released before the GOP contest became a two-person race.

When factoring in undecided voters, which accounted for 7% of those surveyed, Trump’s support increases to 61% to Haley’s 39%.

Despite still trailing by double-digits, the numbers are a positive sign for Haley who has spent time in every corner of the state over the past two weeks in a feverish attempt to cut into Trump’s commanding lead.

“What our data shows is that this is an increasingly close race,” Mark Harris, Chief Strategist for the Pro-Haley Super PAC, SFA Fund said on CNN’s Inside Politics last week. “I think you’re going to see a very strong showing. It’s going to shock a lot of people.”

But, the former United Ambassador’s success in the primary will depend considerably on her ability to convince non-Republican voters to crossover and vote against Trump.

“Voters who affiliate as Republicans break for Trump over Haley, 71% to 29%, while voters who affiliate as Independent break for Nikki Haley 54% to 46%,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said of their most recent findings.

Haley made that appeal over the weekend, noting that anyone who didn’t vote in the Feb. 3 Democratic primary — which attracted under 5% of eligible voters statewide — can vote in this one.

And the push isn’t coming from Haley’s camp alone. Groups like Primary Pivot, which helped rally Democrats and independents for Haley in New Hampshire, are also urging South Carolina voters to back Haley on Saturday.

“There were over 400,000 people that voted in the 2020 Democratic primary that did not vote on Feb. 3,” co-founder Robert Schwartz said during a Monday morning press conference in Columbia, S.C. “They have one simple choice right now: They can stay at home and sit on their couch….or they can vote.”

The group sent out more than 200,000 text messages ahead of the Democratic primary asking people to consider opting to participate in the more-competitive Republican race. Schwartz said another batch of texts will be sent out in the coming days.

“If you can use your vote, you should try to damage the [former] president. Keep Nikki Haley in this race so that she can continue to draw distinctions with him and so that he can continue to spend down resources,” Schwartz said. “Our goal is not to help Nikki Haley win, it’s to help Nikki Haley survive.”

Haley has maintained that she does not need to win South Carolina to remain a viable candidate but that she needs to improve upon her performance in New Hampshire.

“We need to close that gap. We did that in New Hampshire. We were 25 points behind, and we closed, we came in about 25 points in the last three weeks of the election. Our goal is to close that gap, to make sure we do that here,” Haley told News 2 in early February.

Meanwhile, Trump has called on his base to show up in force on Election Day, claiming that “liberals and Marxists” are attempting to “meddle” in the primary.

Both candidates have a handful of events scheduled throughout the state this week as they make their final pleas for votes ahead of the presidential primary.

Haley’s campaign announced plans to rally voters in Greenville, Clemson, North Augusta, Beaufort, Georgetown, Myrtle Beach, Moncks Corner, and Mount Pleasant in the coming days.

Trump is scheduled to participate in a Fox News town hall in Greenville on Tuesday. Then, he’ll hold a rally in Rock Hill on Friday before delivering the keynote speech at the Black Conservative Federation gala in Columbia.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.