Collecting more than 80% of the vote in a presidential primary is a significant win — unless, of course, you’re Donald Trump and are the only remaining active candidate in the Pennsylvania GOP primary.
Trump has been blaming Democrats (by which he seems to mean registered Independent or unaffiliated voters who usually vote for Democratic candidates) for casting ballots in Republican primaries and narrowing his victories.
In Pennsylvania, however, the primaries are closed, meaning that only registered Republicans could cast a ballot for Trump.
Of those nearly 3.5 million registered Pennsylvania Republicans, almost a million showed up, and approximately one out of every six chose to cast a ballot for a candidate who has already suspended her campaign — instead of for the man who is already the presumptive Republican nominee.
Out of a total 946,148 ballots cast in the Republican primary, Nikki Haley received 156,993 votes, to Trump’s 789,155, or 16.6% to his 83.4%.
Trump still gets all the delegates for the state. He’ll still be the nominee for the Republican party when they have their convention this summer. Barring something significant and unpredictable, the lineup for November hasn’t changed.
However, unless that 16.6% of Republican voters are convinced by November, he’s going to have a hard time beating President Joe Biden, who also had a primary in Pennsylvania Tuesday night and earned 93.1% of the Democratic vote, with a single-digit percentage defecting instead to Dean Phillips, who has also dropped out of the race.
Opinion polls haven’t shown Trump’s criminal trials and civil liabilities hurting him much, but the polls are increasingly not great reflections of what’s actually happening at the ballot box — and this outcome seems to suggest there are more never-Trumpers in the Republican party than Team Trump wants to admit.
Even Fox News hit Trump hard for this, calling it a surprise outcome and focusing on the votes the former president lost.
Fox News on the Pennsylvania primary: "The surprise of the night came from the GOP race. There were still more than 100,000 voters casting their ballots for former candidate Nikki Haley." pic.twitter.com/VhWUA1EaPd
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 24, 2024
How’s Trump taking it?
The man who loves to post screenshots of polls, whether they come from serious pollsters or are conducted on Twitter by media MAGAs, has only posted a photo of himself in front of the Pennsylvania flag, with the words, “Trump wins Pennsylvania!” in all caps.
Pretending that a problem doesn’t exist, doesn’t make it go away, however. The real test will be in November when disenchented Pennsylvania Republicans can either stay home or cross party lines in an effort to save democracy.
For clarifications, comments, & typos, email: editor@occupydemocrats.com.
