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Donald J. Trump was able to defeat his rivals in the presidential primary in less than two months thanks to a daunting level of Republican support.
But he still has not won the support of a small but important group of voters: the men and women who cost him a second term in 2020.
His overwhelming primary wins, including more than a dozen on Tuesday that ousted Nikki Haley from the race, appealed to suburban voters, those who consider themselves moderates or independents, and Joseph R. It has obscured long-term problems with his Republican supporters. .Biden Jr. 2020.
On Tuesday, Trump lost in suburban races despite winning Virginia by a whopping 28 percentage points. In North Carolina, his 51-point victory was narrowly held in the well-educated and wealthy suburbs around Charlotte and Raleigh.
Many Republican strategists predict that most of Ms. Haley’s voters will ultimately support their party’s nominee, but it has been four years since Mr. Trump helped prevent a second term in the White House. The failure to win over these voters in less than a year raises pressing questions about Haley’s policies. There are things you can do in the next eight months to convince them.
He doesn’t seem particularly concerned about the challenge, recently threatening to excommunicate rival donors from his political campaign. On Wednesday, he posted on social media that Haley was “arrested in record-breaking fashion last night,” while calling on “all of Haley’s supporters to join us in the largest movement in the history of this country.”
Trump’s inability to expand his support poses the biggest threat to his party’s efforts to regain the presidency. Notably, Haley appeared to be the more likely candidate in November. Polls, including recent New York Times and Siena College polls, suggest that Haley would have easily unseated Biden from the seat.
But Republican voters aren’t resistant to Trump’s electoral risks. They are running towards them.
Throughout the Republican primary and this week’s Super Tuesday campaign, Mr. Trump amassed an overwhelming victory margin. Even as he racked up 91 felonies in four criminal cases, voters rallied around him and supported the party’s success under his leadership in 2018, 2020 and 2022. We overcame a disappointing election.
His victory in Iowa, the first nominating contest last month, was declared before many caucusgoers had cast their votes, reflecting the air of inevitability he proudly brought to the campaign. It’s a fitting metaphor. The Republican primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina attracted record turnout, thanks in large part to voters voting for President Trump, and he won overwhelmingly in every Super Tuesday state except Vermont, where college-educated voters Mr. Haley won because of this small state.
“That’s the big lesson from these primary states so far: There are a significant number of Republican voters who wanted to make a choice in this primary, and those are the people the former president will have to convince before November rolls around.” said Rob. Godfrey was a close aide to Haley when she was governor of South Carolina, and served as a senior adviser to Governor Henry McMaster’s 2022 re-election campaign. It focuses on the opponent’s perceived failures, not on personality. ”
Trump’s campaign is expected to focus on winning back supporters, but it will also look for ways to reach out to disaffected Republicans. The former president is trying to recalibrate his position on abortion rights, but Republicans still feel resentment from the conservative Supreme Court majority he led that overturned Roe v. Wade. ing.
Two unpopular candidates are waiting
Biden is struggling to maintain the coalition he won in 2020. His popularity is significantly lower than it was four years ago, and polls show Democrats are skeptical of his second campaign.
A Times/Siena poll released last week found that just 83% of voters who supported Mr. Biden in 2020 said they would support him again this year, while 97% of voters who supported Mr. Trump said they would support the former president. This is in contrast to what I intended to support.
Biden’s age, support for Israel in the Gaza war and lingering economic uncertainty have gradually eroded his support among younger Democrats, black voters and progressives.
“We can learn a little bit from these primaries, and one of them is that Trump has reinvigorated his base,” said the longtime Republican pollster, who has worked with past Trump campaigns and supermarkets. says Adam Geller, who has worked at PAC. “But beyond that, it remains to be seen, because all the polls show that general election moderate voters are not yet ready to give roses to either Trump or Biden.” .”
But while many of Mr. Biden’s challenges revolve around policy, Mr. Trump faces deeper doubts about his character and temperament that have long haunted him.
Corey Barnett, 48, a doctor in Nashville, Tennessee, who normally supports the Republican Party, said he would prefer a second term to Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump. He voted for Haley on Tuesday even though he knew the former president had a clear path to the nomination.
“In fact, I feel like I’m throwing away my vote today,” he said. “I think that’s just a personal statement.”
Suburbs shun President Trump
Mr. Trump has repulsed suburban moderates since taking control of the Republican Party in 2016, but he has yet to win them back.
Despite easily winning both states, Trump split the suburban vote with Haley in Iowa and New Hampshire. He won rural South Carolina, but by a narrower margin than he won the entire state.
That trend continued Tuesday in Virginia, where Haley lost the state by 28 points but won the suburban district by 1.8 points.
Trump won easily in North Carolina, 74% to 23%, but in Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte and its suburbs, he won by just 7 points. Haley also made significant inroads in Durham, Orange and Wake counties, highly educated and wealthy suburban areas where Democrats believe they have a chance to compete in the state.
“Mr. Trump cannot grow beyond his MAGA base,” top Biden campaign aides Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a memo Wednesday. Ta. “In the next exit poll, he consolidated support only among the most conservative voters.”
In Minnesota, where Trump won by 40 points, Haley finished within 10 points in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, which include Minneapolis, St. Paul and the first ring of suburbs in both cities.
Mr. Trump’s loss in 2020 was in part due to independent voters dissatisfied with him after helping him win the 2016 campaign. The latest poll from the Times and Siena shows independent voters are split 42% to 42% on a rematch between Biden and Trump, but preliminary results show that the former president and This suggests a deep-rooted conflict with voters.
Haley won New Hampshire as an independent in January by a margin of 58% to 39%, according to exit polls. On Tuesday, she narrowly won Virginia’s independent race by a margin of 49% to 48%.
Lillard Teasley, a 60-year-old Nashville small business owner and self-described conservative, said Tuesday that he does not support Mr. Trump, but suggested that could change in November.
“I’m none other than Biden,” he said.
Disagreements on abortion and the 2020 election
A small but significant percentage of Republicans continue to express concerns about Trump’s criminal lawsuits, which are pending after several financially damaging civil suits against him.
One in five Republican primary voters in California and nearly one in three in North Carolina say Trump is unfit to be president if he is convicted, according to CNN exit polls on Tuesday. I answered. On Tuesday, the overwhelming majority of those voters supported Haley.
“Many Republicans and independents are voting against Trump even though they know he’s going to win,” said anti-Trump Republican pollster Sarah Longwell. “It speaks to real weaknesses within President Trump’s party.”
The Super Tuesday results highlighted another weakness on Trump’s part. He lost to Haley among Virginia Republican primary voters who oppose a national abortion ban, according to exit polls. The issue has drawn independents and even some moderate Republicans to Democrats.
The same poll found Republican primary voters in California, North Carolina and Virginia say Biden won the 2020 election fairly, and that undocumented immigrants should be given the chance to apply for legal status. It turned out that voters who claimed that they also supported him. A majority of the party disagreed that Biden’s victory was legitimate and wanted deportation as the immigration solution. Trump led both groups by overwhelming margins.
Republican strategists point to exit polls showing that four in 10 Haley voters supported Biden in New Hampshire and South Carolina in 2020, and that the party’s primary voters The majority predict that they will support Trump in the general election.
But this data point could also highlight Mr. Trump’s weaknesses.
In 2020, about 9% of Republicans said they voted for a presidential candidate other than Trump. This was about twice the percentage of Democrats who said they supported someone other than Biden in that election.
On Tuesday, about one in three Republican primary voters in California, North Carolina and Virginia told pollsters they did not plan to support their party’s candidate in November.
Roughly three-quarters of voters supported Haley.
jamie mcgi Contributed to the report.
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