COLUMBIA, S.C. _ The chairman of the Republican Party in South Carolina said the GOP could cancel its 2020 primary election to protect President Donald Trump, according to an interview with the Washington Examiner published early Wednesday.
South Carolina's primary election is scheduled for Feb, 29, 2020, the third in the country and the first in the South.
SC GOP chairman Drew McKissick told the Examiner, "We have complete autonomy and flexibility in either direction."
In an interview with the newspaper Tuesday, McKissick said, "Considering the fact that the entire party supports the president, we'll end up doing what's in the president's best interest."
Donald Trump won 44 of 46 counties in South Carolina's 2016 primary, according to The Washington Post, taking 32.5 percent of the vote in the state.
Recent polls show the former New York businessman is still popular among Palmetto State Republicans.
The South Carolina Republican Party was not immediately available for comment Wednesday morning.
Katon Dawson, the party's former chairman, told The State Wednesday that voting to forgo a S.C. presidential primary is not unprecedented.
"You're showing the support of your incumbent president," Dawson said. "Certainly people have the right to have primaries and petitions. It's a privilege for a party to do that."
But those primaries can come at a heavy cost for the party, he said.
"Putting on a primary, in modern history, can cost a couple of millions of dollars, up to $3.2 million to have a presidential primary," Dawson said. "There is no fallout not to have a primary on the presidential level, in my opinion."
