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Former President Donald Trump has won Michigan’s Republican primary, NBC News reported.
The win continued Trump’s dominant run through this year’s presidential primaries and caucuses, despite the protracted candidacy of former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.
In Michigan, the Republican nomination contest will be held in two parts. Based on Tuesday’s preliminary results, only 16 of the 55 state delegates to the Republican National Convention will be elected. The remaining delegates will be decided at Saturday’s state party convention.
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Immediately after the campaign was called, President Trump called the Michigan Republican Party’s watch party in Grand Rapids to thank his supporters.
“Our mission is very simple: We must win on November 5th,” President Trump told an audience on the phone, referring to the general election. “We beat Michigan, we won everything.”
Trump’s influence in the state remains deep. He was heavily involved in the 2022 midterm elections, endorsing a slate of statewide candidates who won their primaries with his help, all of whom lost in the general election.
During a Feb. 17 rally in Waterford Township, his only primary rally in Michigan, President Trump largely ignored the race and focused on his rematch with President Joe Biden in November. .
“We want to send a signal, but we want to win on November 5,” he added. “November 5, we’re going to get rid of this man. We’re going to change our country. We’re going to take our country back.”
Haley campaigned in the Detroit suburb of Troy on Sunday and in Grand Rapids on Monday. Haley has failed to emerge victorious in all primaries and caucuses coming up on Tuesday, including in her home state of South Carolina, and has focused on President Trump’s lack of electability this fall.
“If he’s not willing to change, he’s not going to get 40%,” Haley said Sunday in Troy, referring to the vote share in the South Carolina primary. “And why should 40% give in to him?”
Michigan, which Trump narrowly won in 2016 and Biden narrowly won in 2020, is expected to be one of the most competitive battlegrounds this fall.
The primary and Saturday’s convention come amid major turmoil for the Michigan Republican Party. On Tuesday, a judge ruled that former state Rep. Pete Hoekstra, who was confirmed by the Republican National Committee as the new state party chairman, and Christina Karamo, who was ousted from her post by activists unhappy with her management. intervened in a long-running dispute between
Karamo had refused to relinquish his position. She had also vowed to move forward with plans for a rival Republican convention in Detroit on Saturday (Hoekstra is holding the convention in Grand Rapids), but Tuesday’s court order barred her from conducting party business. ing.
President Trump had supported Hoekstra, a former ambassador to the Netherlands. The former president congratulated Hoekstra on his legal victory in a call to the Observatory on Tuesday night.
“Even if we finally get access to all the information from the former leadership of the Republican Party, we won’t find a campaign plan,” Hoekstra said in an interview with NBC News last week. “And we don’t expect to find the financial resources. So, yeah… we do in eight months what political parties usually do in 18 to 20 months.”
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