A very happy political saturday night, everyone. Welcome to our very special coverage of the South CarolinaRepublican Primary, im chris hayes. Im joined tonight by my colleague, rachel maddow, and my colleague, joy reid, here with me at this table here, lawrence odonnell, 70 role, alex wagner, and ari melber. Weve got a whole gang together. Across several different locations. Polls will close in South Carolina in just about half an hour. At seven eastern. Coming up, were going to hear from Steve Kornacki, out of course, the big board. We will also hear from South Carolina voters out in the field, we have a lot to get to over the next few hours, in what has been a crazy last 48 hours of news. This Republican Primary tonight, of course, brings us back to the home state of one, nikki haley, where she was twice elected governor, at high Approval Ratings as such. It also brings us the moment where donald trump hoped to basically end this thing. To close the race out and consolidate his control, officially, and finally, of the Republican Party. A decade has passed since haley last ran for anything in South Carolina, which is, in the politics that we live in, long enough for lots to change. The state electorate, for one, has changed. Its long enough to put her behind trump in the polls, consistently, by double digits. Thats ahead, South Carolina is an open primary, it means you do not need to be a registered publican in order to cast a ballot. One of the things well be watching for today among many is how much support paley polls from independent, democratic leaning voters, as again, a possible early sign of how she might fare as the nominee, were she to become one in a General Election. Even a trump declared this week that haleysburg for the nomination will end here tonight, haley has made it very clear insistently, and consistently, that shell stay in the race matter what. She has both campaign appearances, shes named a Leadership Team for the premiere that comes up in a few days in michigan, coming this tuesday. Its a big night for politics, we are always so happy to have you. Joining, us i want to start with rachel, who we are very badly missing here in the studio, for what is in admittedly, unusual saturday primary night for us. How are you, rachel . Im all right. I mean a viral logically unusual situation, as well. I got covid for the first time in october, then i Got Covid For The Second Time this week. So, im fine. Im taking paxlovid, and getting better. I just started testing negative one within the last few hours. I think im coming out of it. But anyway, i thought, to be safe, i would spare you all from having to breathe my exhale. For the next few hours. Listen, South Carolina primary is, historically, over the course of our adult lives, chris, republicans tend to know who they want their nominee to be, by the time they get to South Carolina. The winner of the South Carolina primary, basically, always wins the republican president ial nomination. That just feels like kind of beside the point, right now, in terms of whats going on between nikki haley and donald trump. Theres donald trump in the Republican Party, a whole bunch of people auditioning to be his Vice President , nikki haley is, essentially, auditioning not to be his Vice President , but to be his understudy. Right . Hes very incoherent on the stump right now, his speeches are getting weirder and harder to follow. Hes getting more and more extreme, his legal liability, his legal jeopardy, the consequences of his legal entanglements are getting more and more extreme. And more, honestly, worrying, in terms of what that might mean for somebody who might be holding the presidency. All of the stuff is kind of closing in on trump, and i think nikki haley has decided, listen, this is a humiliating thing. Im never going to be his running mate if hes the nominee. But somebody ought to be standing there, knowing the lines, and able to step in, with a functioning, funded campaign, in case one of these meteors that keeps hitting trump actually knocked him out. So, it does feel like an understudy race. There does feel like theres some dynamism tonight, maybe haley can do a little bit of what she did in New Hampshire, where she got within 11 points of him. Pull something together with democrats aNd Independent voters like she has in the past. Maybe her home stay favor billety will help her here. That dynamism on the edge is the big question, whats going to happen to the prohibitive front runner . Weve got some news tonight which will get to in a little bit, of some interesting things happening at the rnc, to your point, rachel, about exactly this. One of the long and storied republican members of the Republican National committee, hayley barber, trying to pump some breaks here, and basically make sure that that Understudy Position stays in place. Were going to get to that a little bit later. Lets go over, of course, to Steve Kornacki, whos at the big board. What are you watching for tonight . And as you dig into the exit polls, which have been coming out in the last hour or so, what are you seeing early on . A couple things you see here, the map is blank right now, that will be changing in less than half an hour from now. You do expect within minutes of the polls closing, we have a lot of early voting, theyve been counting it up before the polls close. So that usually gets reported out first. Look for that within a few minutes of that poll closing. Time is 7 00. You mentioned the exit polls, what were looking at right here, pull them up on the screen here, theres going to be three waves of data that come in, all day weve had folks out in the field, interviewing people leaving the polls, just getting a bigger and bigger pool of voters. That process is still ongoing, as the polls stay open now. Were going to show you the first compilation of whats been conducted so far. These numbers can change a little bit, but its like that polaroid fattah, its coming into focus, what this electorate looks like. I think theres two things to go in right here. First is this, the big question, you mentioned this as well, the party i. D. , this is an open primary, anybody, as long as they didnt vote in that democratic primary three weeks ago, which only 130,000 people dead, anybody else whos registered can vote. The question we ask in the exit poll is are you, do you think of yourself as a republican, independent, democrat . You see 69 here call themselves republicans. 21 independent, 4 democrats, 6 Say Something else. Of course, you know, so much of this primary has been about nikki haley running a massive margin with independents, especially huge numbers with democrats, when theyre able to participate. Donald trump, dominating among republicans. Thats why people were so interested in this question. You add up the nonrepublican share here in our exit poll, its 31 , compared to 69 republican. Thats what were seeing in our exit poll. Two point of reference on this, a month ago, New Hampshire, remember, we talked about haley just running up the score with independents, and even democrats. That electorate in New Hampshire was 50 on republican. 50 50 electorate. 50 non republican, tonight in his exit poll were seeing 31 in South Carolina, the other point of reference is a historical one. Whats the alltime high in terms of the share of Republican Primary electorate in South Carolina . Thats not republicans. The answer is the year 2000, george w. Bush, john mccain, mccain, like haley, now big appeal to independents and to democrats, bush, more with republicans. The number in 2000, the alltime high in South Carolina was 13 9 . None republican. This number you can see right now, well short of that 39, that 39 who is not enough for john mccain in 2000, he lost the state by 11 points to george w. Bush. Thats one thing we are seeing right now, in at least this first wave of the exit polling. The second thing were seeing right now, ive got to point out to you, we look at this number as well. Very important in republican primaries. What share of this calls themselves evangelical, born again christians. Two thirds, 66 . We said the train gets very different when we go from New Hampshire to South Carolina, how different this number was in New Hampshire, it was 19 . Thats one of the most secular republican nations in the country. You go to one of the more evangelical heavy electorates, look at that difference there, 47 point swing. Take a look at the map, as i said, its got to start letting up here just after 7 00. We think well start getting early vote ports from these counties, a lot of these counties, the early vote will be a third, maybe a third of all of the votes. Nikki haley, if shes going to pull off the mother of all political miracles tonight and win the state, or failing that, if shes going to have a strong showing, whats seen as a strong showing, the key for her, demographically, weve seen her appeal, it is to the College Educated, the higher income, its two suburbanites. Both within the Republican Party, and among independents and democrats who she is trying tiller into this Republican Party. Where do you look on this map for that . The, right here, this county, where the city of charlestons, Charleston County. This is the mother lode of College Educated, higher income suburbanite types. This is one of the only two counties in the state that donald trump did not carry in the 2020 General Election. This is the first Congressional District of South Carolina. Look for haley here, shed need to run up big numbers in Charleston County, also a part of that First District right next door, this is before county. We are hilton head is. Again, this is a bastion of voters who have College Degrees, and also part of this district, the fast growing suburbs of berkeley county, again, this is the terrain haley really needs to look for. Where else does she need to do extremely well . Well, the State Capital, richland county, columbia. Again, one of the highest concentrations of College Degrees in the state. Again, among republicans, in the kind of place she wants to be pulling in a lot of democratic voters. A lot of independent voters. If its gonna happen for her, its gonna happen in richland county. What i want to look at is the update, this county, greenville, the city of greenville, is actually going to produce the most votes of any county in the state tonight. Its a little different, Greenville County is, than the rest of the upstate, in much higher concentration of College Degrees right here. Again, haley telling a super, super strong night, its even gonna show for her in Greenville County. As i said, greenville is the exception in the upstate, you could basically draw a line here, your, county rockville, right outside of charlotte, you could basically draw a line. In this zone here, in the upstate, nine of the ten highest concentrations of evangelical voters in the entire state, nine counties out of the ten, with the highest concentration of evangelicals, are all in here. This was a trouble zone for donald trump in the 2016 republican primaries. Thats part of this story to. Remember, we talked about it in iowa. In 2016, trump had struggled with evangelicals in iowa, eight years later, the presidency later, he had a political bond with evangelicals that powered him in the iowa caucuses, six weeks ago. Again, you would look to Trumps Campaign would now look to this as a major source of strength outside of greenville. Along with, his best counting the state, in 2016, horry county, fourth largest in the state, myrtle beach, conway, a lot of retirees, a lot of folks they called trump transplants, folks with conservative, pro trump politics, who have moved into the state. You look there for it as well. Again, less than 20 minutes now, before we get some results. Steve kornacki, thank you for that. Well be back to very shortly. Joy, let me go to you. There are two questions here that weve been asking in these early primary contests, from the exit polls, just wanted to get your read on these, because weve talked about them a lot. I think they serve as proxy questions, in some ways. Number one, did joe biden legitimately win in 2020 . Thats one of the exit polls. Yes, gets 32 of the folks voting in South Carolina, according to our exit polls. No gets 65 . Two thirds, one third there. Then a question about if trump is convicted, is he fit to be president . Should he face criminal conviction in any one of the outstanding 91 indictments he faces . You get, again, very similar numbers, yes he still fit at 65, now, hes not, at 32. Two thirds, one third. What is your read on that . Right, i think you can go back to what steve is just saying, about the makeup of this electorate. This is a 92 white, overwhelmingly evangelical christian Primary Electorate in South Carolina. I think writ large across the country, thats the way they think. Even on the independent voters who are about 21 of this electorate, its almost a 50 50 question, as to whether President Biden is illegitimate president of the United States. That is what the Republican Party is now. It is a baseline condition of being a Base Republican right now. That you do not believe that the 2020 election was legitimate, you believe that donald trump is the rightful president of the United States, you believe that hes the most electable candidate, thats also in these exit polls, more so than nikki haley, which there is no Empirical Data that supports that. And you believe that he should be president , regardless of whether hes convicted of a felony. Which he very likely will be in the next month. I think that there is nothing new here, in terms of what mcgaw voters, Republican Voters think, but i think that because South Carolina is such a heavily white evangelical conservative state, and its so overwhelmingly a republican state, i was talking with somebody from the nikki haley world, about whether or not there was any success that democrats may have had in getting democratic voters to come out and vote, because it it isnt a primary, trying to vote for nikki haley. Their response was there are almost no democrats in this state, other than jim clyburn. That wouldve helped at all. This is who the Republican Base is right now. Alex, one of the things thats funny about these exit polls, to me, always, is its not like people have these different views on the issues, and theyre adding them up and tallying which candidate, its working the other way around. The Candidate Choice, and this is the dominant theme weve seen, the Candidate Choice is sort of feelings of affection, loyalty, devotion to donald trump, is the kind of conviction the organizing principle. That produces the subsequent result. I would say, from all the reporting on the ground, you hear this South Carolina primary was once described as a knife fight in a phone booth. I believe, according to jonathan martin, thats where that phrase comes from. This is a place that makes campaigning a blood sport. Thats not been a case this year. Theres a lot of reporting about the kind of grudging acceptance that trump is going to win this thing, be the nominee. I think we shouldnt let that to lie on its own. Its a sign of a party in decline. The fact that there is widespread discontent, generally, a feeling that trumps mouth has gotten the party in trouble, even if they like his policies. But that nobody is actively trying to do anything about it. They are resigned to this individual. Having said that, as much as we talk about this electorate being composed of a group of voters that are not the bread and butter for the haley campaign, she has not really tried to campaign the way i think someone who really wanted to win the South Carolina would. This is someone who did not make the outreach to the party apparatus, in any kind of timely fashion. This is someone who really, im not gonna say abandoned, but had national aspirations, and was very clear about them, after her term of governor. She didnt headquarter herself near columbia, she lives on kiawah isl