Former President Trump plans to tighten his grip on the Republican presidential nomination on Super Tuesday, with plausible hopes of winning all 15 open races.
The main hope for her last remaining rival, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, appears to be a victory in Virginia, where she is backed by moderate voters in the wealthy suburbs adjacent to Washington, D.C.
But Haley is already far behind in the delegate elections that will ultimately decide the nomination.
As of Monday afternoon, Trump had secured 244 delegates to Haley’s 43 delegates. There are 29 more delegates up for grabs in North Dakota’s Republican caucuses on Monday.
Haley won her first victory in the District of Columbia primary on Sunday. Her campaign noted that this victory made her history, making her the first woman to win a Republican presidential primary.
But DC’s win doesn’t change the shape of the race, nor is it a harbinger of things to come. Republican voters in the district have very little power to represent the national party’s grassroots.
The Trump campaign has grasped this point. Spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said Ms. Haley had been “anointed queen of the swamp by lobbyists and D.C. insiders seeking to protect the broken status quo.”
Haley stepped up her attacks on Trump throughout the primary. In the lead-up to the recent campaign, she argued that Trump could not win the general election, mocked his inability to serve the country in uniform, and that Presidents Trump and Biden are each too old to be president. He suggested that they were taking too much.
Haley has also remained steadfast about whether she would support Trump if he ultimately wins the nomination.
Mr. Trump’s combative rhetoric, hard-line positions on issues such as immigration, and ability to convey the passion of his party’s base look like a sure recipe for winning the nomination.
Voting on Super Tuesday, when 15 states are holding Republican primaries and caucuses, was predictably sparse after President Trump returned home in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. All of these wins were double-digit wins. In Haley’s home state of South Carolina, Trump won by 20 points.
Several polls have also been conducted in California, which votes on Tuesday, and an average of polls maintained by The Hill and Decision Desk Headquarters (DDHQ) shows Trump with a huge 55-point lead. is attached.
Republicans will have a total of 865 delegates on Super Tuesday.
Trump aides have long predicted that this would be the end of Haley’s career.
Trump’s most senior campaign officials, Susie Wiles and Chris Lacivita, predicted that Super Tuesday would be “lights out” for her in late January.
Hailey hasn’t made her intentions clear since Super Tuesday. Although she may remain in the contest to continue proposing a different version of conservatism, conventional wisdom holds that she is likely to withdraw.
In any case, this follows Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, where he lost the popular vote by about 7 million votes, and his impeachment for inciting the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. This is a surprising political comeback for the United States.
At the time, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) declared: “There is no question, no question, that President Trump is factually and morally responsible for causing the events of that day.” .
Since then, Trump has regained control of the party. McConnell announced last week that he will step down as Senate Republican leader in November, a position he has held since 2007.
Of course, there are still real doubts about Mr. Trump.
At least some of the 91 criminal charges against him could go to trial before the election. Several polls show that a criminal conviction would cause substantial electoral damage to Trump.
One such study earlier this year found that From Bloomberg and Morning Consultfound that 53 percent of voters in seven key battleground states would refuse to vote for Trump if he was convicted.
Ms. Haley is also about right to argue on the stump that she will be a stronger candidate against Mr. Biden in the general election.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released Saturday showed Haley leading Biden by 9 points in a hypothetical face-off among registered voters.
Haley also appears to have a big appeal at center field. Among independents, Biden had a 9-point lead over Trump, but among independents, Biden had a 4-point lead over Trump.
But Republican voters are largely unmoved by that argument, even though similar polls show Trump holding an advantage, albeit a narrow one, over a politically weakened president. Not yet.
A Times poll showed Trump leading Biden by 4 points among registered voters. The survey also revealed that 47% of voters “strongly disapprove” of Biden’s performance, and a further 12% “somewhat disapprove.”
The poll showed that 71% of likely 2024 voters think Biden is “too old to be an effective president.” Mr. Biden is 81 years old, just four years older than Mr. Trump. However, only 41% of voters think President Trump is too old.
Trump’s aides predict a loss on Super Tuesday. There is good reason to predict that they are correct.
As a highly competitive race, the Republican primary appears to be nearly over.
The country is now gearing up for the 2020 rematch this November.
This memo is a reported column by Niall Stanag.e.
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