CAMDEN, South Carolina — To the list of proud American political traditions to which Donald Trump has laid waste, add that of the South Carolina primary.

Over its colorful history, South Carolina presidential plebiscite has been many things — dirty, decisive and, most recently for Joe Biden, rejuvenating. But it had never been sleepy. Until now.

Nikki Haley has run a conventional campaign against the most thoroughly unconventional candidate of our times. Trump has done, and even this may be charitable, the bare minimum of campaigning in the state this month. And the national press corps has largely checked out of the race, concluding after two Trump victories that the outcome is pre-ordained so why bother building a pricey set and deploying anchors as they did for past showdowns here.

At a glance, the somnolence is remarkable. Here’s the long-anticipated, two-person race for the GOP nomination, with traditional Republicans finally landing on their sole alternative to Trump. And she happens to be a she whose make or break moment will take place in her home state. Seems like a hell of a story.

What’s more, it would have once been hard to conceive of a more favorable turn of events than what has fallen into Haley’s lap in recent weeks.

In one of his few trips to South Carolina ahead of Saturday’s primary, Trump used the same rally to wonder out loud where Haley’s combat-deployed husband was and to invite Russia to invade a NATO ally that was not spending enough on defense. The former president quickly returned to the golf course, but soon afterwards Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken domestic critic died in an arctic prison, a stark reminder of who the man in the Kremlin is that Trump boasts of getting along with.

Haley sought to capitalize on the turn of events — it’s not every day an opponent taunts a military family about their service and invites a foe to invade America’s allies — but Trump’s eruption appears to have impacted his standing with Republicans like his outbursts have for nearly nine years. Which is to say only at the margins.

And that is the overarching reason why this South Carolina race seems so anticlimactic. In this Republican race demography is destiny, to borrow a phrase.

It’s less of a primary than a modern general election in which the opposing sides are as predictable as they are calcified. Haley performs best with the most educated and wealthy Republicans, as well as independents and Democrats eager to block Trump’s return, while the former president has majority support thanks to his grip on the working-class base that now dominates the GOP coalition.

External events, gaffes, a home-state advantage and issue differences matter little. Cold, unchanging math is the determinative factor, not the old standbys. And in South Carolina there are fewer college-educated and unaffiliated voters than there were in New Hampshire so the pool available to Haley is reduced.

She’s tried to overcome this challenge by expanding the........

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