South Carolina becomes early focal point for 2024 presidential election

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• Amna Nawaz:

  We may still be a year away from the first presidential primary contests, but the Republican field is officially taking shape.

  Nikki Haley kicked off her campaign this week, and several other potential candidates are eying a run.

  South Carolina, home to one of the first primary contests next year, was in the Republican spotlight this week.

  Nikki Haley (R), Presidential Candidate: I am running for president of the United States of America.

  (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

• Amna Nawaz:

  As former Governor Nikki Haley threw her hat into the 2024 ring.

• Nikki Haley:

  America is not past our prime. It's just that our politicians are past theirs.

  (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

• Amna Nawaz:

  The former U.N. ambassador and daughter of Indian immigrants offering her party a new vision of leadership.

• Nikki Haley:

  We're ready, ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past. And we are more than ready for a new generation to lead us into the future.

• Amna Nawaz:

  It's a message that could resonate with Republican voters.

• Woman:

  We want new leadership, younger leadership as well. And that's what we need.

• Amna Nawaz:

  More than half of them say they will vote for a candidate other than former President Donald Trump, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.

• Susan Kurnit, Voter:

  Go for it. If you could beat Donald Trump, I'll be happy.

• Amna Nawaz:

  While she is the first Republican to challenge Trump for the nomination, others are expected to join the fray, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott among those weighing a campaign.

• Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC):

  I'm Tim Scott.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Scott, who was first appointed to the Senate by Haley 10 years ago, also found himself in the Palmetto State spotlight.

• Sen. Tim Scott:

  The story of America is not defined by our original sin. The story of America is defined by our redemption.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Delivering a Black History Month speech to the Charleston Republican Party last night. And testing themes that could be part of an eventual presidential campaign.

• Sen. Tim Scott:

  Listen, I understand being treated as a second-class citizen because of the color of my skin. I refuse, I refuse to be treated as a second-class citizen because of the color of my party. I'm not playing that game twice.

• MAN:

  Nikki Haley.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Haley ended her first week as a candidate in New Hampshire, but she and Scott will cross paths again soon in another early GOP contest state, with both of them planning trips to Iowa next week.

  For a closer look at the 2024 race, Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter is in South Carolina and was at both Nikki Haley and Tim Scott's speeches this week.

  Amy, always good to see you.

  Let's just start with those messages we heard from both Tim Scott and Nikki Haley. They're talking about a new generation of leadership, a generational change, drawing lines that say they're different from former President Trump, but not really anti-Trump.

  What is the lane that they're trying to occupy here?

• Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

  Yes, that's a that's a very good point.

  So, if you look at the Republican electorate right now, about 30 percent, maybe 35 percent are locked in with Donald Trump. They're not interested in voting for any other candidate than Donald Trump. Probably 10 percent or so are considered anti-Trump voters. They don't want and they will never vote for Donald Trump in a primary.

  That leaves a pretty wide swathe of Republican voters who aren't anti-Trump, but are looking and are open to an alternative. And that's the lane that all these candidates want to try to fit into.

  Now, one model of that lane is the Ron DeSantis model, which says: I'm going to be a lot like Donald Trump. You all like Donald Trump for a reason, because he goes after the establishment, the elites, the mainstream media. I'm going to be just like that.

  And he's doing pretty well in the polls right now, at least the early polls. What Nikki Haley and Tim Scott are doing, though, is, they're saying, essentially, there's not enough room for me in this lane, the sort of pugilistic, we're going to take it to the elite in the establishment in that same way.

  They're running more as happy warriors than they are as cultural warriors. If Donald Trump was, as we saw in his inaugural speech, talking about American carnage, Nikki Haley, in her speech running for president, was much more Reaganesque, more morning in America.

  And the hope that Nikki Haley is making, or at least the case that she's making is that this more optimistic, more aspirational message, while still — she's still on the attack. Let's be clear, she's not running as a moderate. She's not running as an anti-Trump candidate. But what she's suggesting is that this is a more electable message.

  She says over and over again, Republicans have lost the popular vote for president in seven of the last eight elections. And what she's basically saying to Republican voters is, you can get a fighter in me — she talked a lot about being a fighter, being an underdog, going after the establishment as a governor, as a candidate in her — in her past life.

  So you can still get that, but I'm going to bring people in, bring in those voters who are turned off by Donald Trump and may be turned off by someone like Ron DeSantis as well.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So, Amy, how is that happy warrior message landing?

  You're in the room. You're watching people, listening to them, talking to them as they hear these messages. Did anyone you talk to say they would back Haley or Scott for president?

• Amy Walter:

  So, Trump's shadow is still really very, very long here in South Carolina.

  And we were in Charleston, which is where I think you would be fair to say there are a lot of Republicans here who probably aren't big Trump fans or would be more open to somebody like a Nikki Haley or a Tim Scott or somebody actually who is running against Donald Trump, not just somebody who's different from Donald Trump.

  The real question is whether or not they will be appealing to voters, again, just like in any other state, who are looking for an alternative, and — but don't necessarily want someone who's all that different, right?

  This aspirational, more optimistic message, sort of a Reaganesque message, let's be clear, it hasn't been that successful for Republicans since Donald Trump came onto the scene, at least not in primaries. We saw this, obviously, in 2016. We saw it in 2022. The candidates who won primaries for governor, for Senate, for Congress ran much more like Donald Trump than like a Nikki Haley or a Tim Scott.

  So the appetite may not be there.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So, Amy, these are both candidates from South Carolina, both also candidates of color, right?

  And when so much of the party messaging right now seems to be pushing back on this idea of a more diverse America, decrying the so-called woke agenda, how do these two candidates fit into that?

• Amy Walter:

  Yes, it was fascinating. They didn't use the term woke at all.

  Instead, again, in the same theme of being more aspirational or inspirational, they say, look at me, look at my family. How can we be a country that doesn't offer the prospect of achieving success when I have been able to do all of these things, my family has been able to succeed, because we're a country — as Nikki Haley says, we need to stop our self-loathing is her term, her way of talking about that.

  So, again, trying to really lean in, instead of grievance, leaning in to the aspiration.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter joining us tonight from South Carolina.

  Amy, always good to see you.

• Amy Walter:

  Great to see you. Thank you.