Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks to his supporters during a rally on February 17, 2024 in Waterford, Michigan.
Scott Olson | Getty Images
Donald Trump won the Republican presidential primary in Michigan, handily defeating former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, Trump’s last remaining primary rival.
“The numbers are far greater than we even expected,” Trump said via speakerphone to a Republican election party in Grand Rapids, shortly after news organizations called the race for him. “Thank you very much, we will be running many campaigns in the next few months.”
Haley has also vowed to continue campaigning at least through next week’s Super Tuesday, when 15 states and one U.S. territory hold their nominating contests.
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Her campaign called Tuesday’s results in Michigan proof that Trump couldn’t even win his own party in a general election.
“This should serve as another warning sign that what happened in Michigan will continue to have ripple effects across the country,” said Olivia Perez-Cubas, Haley’s national spokeswoman.
“As long as Donald Trump remains at the top of the ticket, Republicans will continue to lose to the socialist left. Our children deserve better,” Perez-Cubas said.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley hosts a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA on February 26, 2024.
Carlos Osorio | Reuters
Haley has not won any Republican primaries or caucuses and is not expected to win in state primaries. Still, her campaign has organized leadership teams in at least nine Super Tuesday states, the most recent of which was announced earlier Tuesday.
Trump already entered the Michigan primary with momentum, having beaten Haley by double digits in her home state of South Carolina just three days earlier.
But there were also warning signs on Tuesday for the former president, who claims the Republican Party is more united behind him than ever before.
In South Carolina, Haley received nearly 40% of the vote. And while Democrats were allowed to vote in the state’s GOP primary, more than one in five Republican voters there told AP VoteCast that they would not vote for Trump in a general election, Politico reported.
Trump’s path to the nomination and another chance at the White House also leads through a thicket of legal problems.
He is scheduled to be tried in a New York court next month on criminal charges related to alleged hush money payments to a porn star and others. Another criminal trial based on Trump’s withholding of classified documents after he left the White House in 2020 is scheduled to begin in late May in federal court in Florida.
Trump is also battling two other criminal cases involving his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden. Trump pleaded not guilty to all of his criminal charges.
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2024-03-05 16:10:55
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