Former Executive Director of the South Carolina Republican Party and past adviser for Mike Huckabee Hogan Gidley attended the recent Republican debate and agreed with frontrunner Donald Trump that the majority of the attendees, many of whom booed Trump repeatedly, were from the donor class.

“It was a stroke of genius by Donald Trump to say these are all donors, because they were. I was the Executive Director of party for awhile … of course you give tickets to donors. The rank and file rarely get in. So, you do have a large establishment contingent in a crowd,” Gidley said on Breitbart News Daily. He thinks the GOP establishment continues to deny the tremendous anger at the party across the base and is failing to respond accordingly.

Citing internal polls Gidley has seen from more than one candidate, he feels Trump is “in the driver’s seat,” up by somewhere from 10 – 15 points and running strong for now in South Carolina, while the raminign candidates are running head-to-head for second place. He also pointed out that a week is a long time to go in SC politics.

Gidley pointed out that the South Carolina primary is “a brutal, bare-knuckle bloodbath, every time.”

He also pointed out that, as the gateway to the so-called SEC primary in a week, there’s a lot at stake in South Carolina this year. “The pressure is on to play tough here and to actually make your case here.”

Gidley pointed out some of the dirty politics that have plagued the state’s primary in the past, including Sen John McCain being accused of fathering a black child out of wedlock and another candidate who had been accused of needing to be attached to a car battery due to “mental instabilities.”

Said Gidley of politics, “It’s not nice here in South Carolina. We say things like bless your heart, while we’re slitting your throat. Then you’re standing in a pool of your own blood and you’re muttering, what just happened.”

Gidley said South Carolinians appreciate honesty in their politicians and he thinks that’s why frontrunner Donald Trump has been polling so well there. He also called South Carolina “Jeb Bush’s last stand.”

The entire Breitbart News Daily interview with Hogan Gidley can be heard below.