Nikki Haley, still taking votes from Donald Trump
Last Tuesday (March 19), Florida, Arizona, Illinois, Ohio and Kansas held their Republican presidential primaries. While Donald Trump, like President Joe Biden, had previously earned the necessary number of delegates to be his party’s nominee, a look at these latest primary results show a lingering problem for Trump. Specifically, while Trump has run unopposed since Nimrata “Nikki” Haley dropped out of the race on “Super Tuesday,” March 6, Trump has not gotten anywhere near the voting percentage that he should now be getting in the Republican primaries.
In Florida, for example, Trump received just over 81 percent of the vote. Nikki Haley received nearly 14 percent, and Ron DeSantis received 3.7 percent, even though both Haley and DeSantis are no longer running. According to Newsweek:
The results suggest the former president is losing support in Florida compared with the previous election in 2020. That year, he won about 94 percent of the state vote in the primary.
As for the excuse that some votes may have been cast for Haley before she dropped out on March 6, that would not explain that (a) plenty of early votes were cast after March 6, including early in-person voting on and after March 14, and (b) not only did Ron DeSantis receive a good number of votes, even Chris Christie received nearly 9,000 votes, and each of them dropped out of the campaign last January.
In the other states that held primaries on March 19, the picture was very similar:
—In Ohio, Trump received only 79.2 percent of the vote, with Haley getting well over 14 percent, and DeSantis and Christie both on the board as well. In 2020, in contrast, Trump won 100 percent of the vote.
—In Arizona, Trump’s vote total was only 78 percent, with Haley winning a hefty 18.5 percent, followed again by DeSantis and Christie. In 2020, Arizona did not hold a Republican presidential primary, but Trump won all of the state’s delegates.
—In Illinois, Trump won 80.7 percent, with Haley at 14.4 percent, and both DeSantis and Christie winning votes as well. In 2020, Trump won 96 percent of the vote.
—In Kansas, Trump gained only 75.5 percent of the vote, with Haley at a notable 16.1 percent, “None of the Names Shown at 5.2 percent, and DeSantis at 2.6 percent. In 2020, meanwhile, Trump won 100 percent of the vote.
These results for Donald Trump suggest that his campaign of extremism, racism and fascism, while probably delightful to his MAGA base, is destined to turn off everyone else, even some sane Republicans. Indeed, according to Newsweek, some former Haley donors are switching to Biden instead of Trump, apparently following Haley’s lead in not endorsing Trump when she dropped out of the race. As the same Newsweek article indicates, there is even “a WhatsApp group called ‘Haley Supporters for Biden’ that is seeking to recruit more Haley donors to the cause.” It’s unusual for the party’s losing primary contestants not to support the winner (think of Hillary Clinton, for example, losing in the 2008 Democratic primaries to Barack Obama, then joining to endorse him and accept the job as Obama’s Secretary of State, or, more recently in 2020, Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg losing in the primaries to Joe Biden, then endorsing him and being named his Vice President and Transportation Secretary, respectively). In contrast, just a week ago, Trump’s Vice President, Mike Pence, said that he would not endorse Trump this year.
All of this should be quite concerning for anyone who wishes for a Trump election victory in November.
Photo by Michael Stokes, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/gmOc3c
