Haley sees support from moderates in South Carolina, poll finds

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley continues to lag considerably behind Donald Trump in polls ahead of the South Carolina primary election but is finding support among moderate voters, according to a poll published Tuesday.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents who identified themselves as liberals or moderates said they’d vote for the former South Carolina governor, a Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll found. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they’d vote for Trump.

She also narrowly led among people who said they’re voting in the GOP primary for the first time, with 51 percent.

Haley’s biggest lead over the former president came from those who said the most important issue of the future is democracy, with 63 percent of respondents favoring her.

But Trump dominated in other categories. Among those likely to vote in Saturday's Republican primary, 63 percent said they’d vote for Trump, while 35 percent said they'd cast a ballot for Haley.

South Carolina, Haley’s home state, is crucial to her longshot presidential campaign. But it appears unlikely that she’ll come out victorious: A poll last week also found that Trump led Haley in the state with 65 percent of potential voters favoring him.

The Suffolk University/USA Today poll survey was conducted Thursday through Sunday by calls with 500 South Carolinians who said they’re "very likely" to vote in the primary or had cast an early ballot. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, according to the outlet.