DONALD TRUMP comfortably beat Nikki Haley for the Republican nomination in her home state of South Carolina at the weekend, increasing the probability he will be the party’s presidential candidate.

With around 60 per cent of the votes, the ex-president declared that he had “never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now.”

Ms Haley, who was governor of South Carolina from 2011-2017 and worked for Mr Trump as ambassador to the UN when he was president, says she will stay in the race.

But the former president has now won every significant primary so far. On Saturday night she acknowledged that Mr Trump was seen as the anti-system candidate, saying: “What I saw today was South Carolina’s frustration with our country’s direction.”

Mr Trump’s rhetorical hostility to US foreign entanglements reportedly chimed with voters, with six in 10 South Carolina Republicans saying in a survey the US should stop military support for Ukraine.