COLUMBIA Gov. Nikki Haley is betting her future on Mitt Romney's, exhausting the support that tea party backers once supplied her.

South Carolina's first female governor endorsed Romney in Saturday's Republican presidential primary, a decision that might vault her into national office.

But the move could also stall her career in Columbia, where she is being scorned by some of those who elected her.

"It was like your best friend took up with a really bad boyfriend," said Karen Martin, 54, an organizer for the tea party chapter in Spartanburg.

Haley, 39, was elected in 2010 as a champion of the movement that pushed states' rights and fiscal rectitude. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she was portrayed as an adversary of the S.C. General Assembly's good-old-boy network.

She became the first woman to run the state that ranks 50th in female representation, said Karen Kedrowski, a Winthrop University political scientist.

Haley's endorsement of Romney - a former governor of the liberal state of Massachusetts - was jaw-dropping, Haley's tea party and libertarian supporters said in interviews last week.

"People were angry, disappointed, betrayed, hurt," Martin said. She portrayed the rift as a family fight.

In statewide polls released Friday, Romney holds a narrow lead over former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Haley said in a telephone interview that her choice of Romney, a former private-equity executive at Bain Capital LLC, aligned with her principles.

"I did not want a bureaucrat," she said. "I did want a businessman. I didn't want anybody who had anything to do with the chaos in Washington."

Haley's endorsement might lift her into national politics - an ambition she has denied - or make her a one-term governor, said Talbert Black, 42, a libertarian who organized tea party support for Haley in her gubernatorial race.

A December poll by Winthrop found Haley with only 52.5 percent approval in her own party, and at 34.6 percent total. A Clemson University poll the month before showed 64 percent approval among Republicans, a level that was "neither particularly good nor particularly bad," said David Woodard, a professor of political science.

Dawning realization

Fervor was cooling even before the governor threw her support to Romney over tea party favorites such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann. Some supporters said Haley compromised too much with the General Assembly that she ran against in 2010, Black said.

"People were slowly coming to believe that maybe she didn't mean it," he said. "She's gotten that insider disease that says you have to compromise to get along."

An interview Marie Claire magazine published this month - headlined "Will Nikki Haley Be Our First Female President?" - caused further heartburn, he said.

She included Hillary Clinton as one of her role models, Black said. "She also included Margaret Thatcher and Joan Jett, so maybe it was just strong women. But Hillary Clinton?"

What Haley supporters say

Supporters say Haley remains influential.

"There are Romney internal polls that show she's popular," said GOP state Rep. Ralph Norman of Rock Hill. "That's why you see her being used by the Romney campaign in the first place."

The endorsement made sense to him: Romney backed Haley's gubernatorial campaign when she was still trailing the primary field, he said.

The governor said anger is exaggerated.

"I support the tea party," she said.

Romney promised to keep the federal government from interfering with South Carolina if elected, she said. She cited the withdrawn National Labor Relations Board complaint against a Boeing Co. expansion in North Charleston, and federal legal challenges to the state's anti-immigration and voter identification laws.

Healthy dissent

The rancor among Republicans, "is normal," Haley said. "That's what happens in a primary."

Meanwhile, as her old supporters turn away, her longtime opponents are digging in.

Her missteps include replacing Darla Moore, a longtime University of South Carolina trustee, with a campaign donor, said Dick Harpootlian, a lawyer who heads the South Carolina Democratic Party. Moore had contributed millions of dollars to USC, and the university's business school is named after her.

While Haley's supporters say her push for new jobs has made her popular with the state's business community, others are disenchanted.

Her endorsement will deliver nothing for Romney, said Martin, the Spartanburg tea party leader.

"He is at the bottom of our list," she said. "Perry would have made more sense. Bachmann, that would have made sense. Even Newt Gingrich would have made more sense, although he's had his baggage."

"Romney, that was too far for us to go."