Trump Poised for a Big Super Tuesday Win
Happy Monday! Enjoy this bit of Joe Biden arcana from the recent New Yorker profile of the president: โAs early as 1970, a colleague of Bidenโs on a Delaware county council observed that he could make a โfifteen-minute speech on the underside of a blade of grass.โโ
Up to Speed
- Four national polls released this weekendโfrom the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and CBS Newsโshow President Joe Biden trailing his likely GOP opponent, Donald Trump, in a head-to-head matchup. The Journal (47 percent for Trump to 45 percent for Biden) and Fox News (49 percent to 47 percent) both found registered voters nationally prefer Trump to Biden by 2 points. CBS News found Trump leading Biden by 4 points with registered voters, and Trump even gets a clear majority: 52 percent to Bidenโs 48 percent. The Times, the only one of the four polls to screen for likely voters as well, found Trumpโs lead was 4 points and outside the margin of error, 48 percent to 44 percent. Among registered voters, the Times found Trumpโs lead was slightly wider at 5 points, 48 percent to 43 percent.
- The crosstabs of the Times poll offer insight into how Trump is currently beating Biden. Among likely voters, the Republican frontrunner is leading the president with men, white voters, and voters without bachelorโs degrees. Trump also wins with Gen X and millennial voters, and he has a narrow lead with women and Hispanic voters. Trump is also winning 20 percent of black votersโa big jump from the 8 percent he won in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.
- Perhaps most troubling for the president, the Times poll showed just 85 percent of Biden 2020 voters saying theyโll vote for the president again, compared to 9 percent who say they will vote for Trump this time. Meanwhile, 97 percent of Trump 2020 voters say they will vote for Trump again. That number tells a big part of the story of Bidenโs poor numbers: heโs lost members of his 2020 coalition. Only one incumbent president in the modern era has ever shrunk his share of the vote (and his overall vote total) and gone on to win reelection: Barack Obama in 2012.
- In an eventful weekend for the GOP primary, Trump scooped up 39 additional delegates from Michigan at that state GOPโs convention Saturday, adding to the 12 he won in the state primary earlier in the week. Also on Saturday, Trump swept the Idaho and Missouri Republican caucuses, netting him an additional 83 delegates total from those states. (Missouri still has three of its delegates to award, and it wonโt do so or bind its delegates to a candidate until the state party convention in May.)
- But it wasnโt all wins for Trump this weekend. His remaining opponent, Nikki Haley, scored a victory Sunday in the District of Columbiaโs Republican primaryโthe first time this cycle someone other than Trump has won a primary or caucus. Haley got nearly 63 percent of the vote and snagged all 19 of D.C.โs delegates. The former South Carolina governor became the first woman to win a Republican presidential nominating contest. Trump now has 244 delegates to Haleyโs 43 delegates.
- Some dueling statements from the GOP campaigns. First, Haley spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas: โItโs not surprising that Republicans closest to Washington dysfunction are rejecting Donald Trump and all his chaos.โ Now, from Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt: โWhile Nikki has been soundly rejected throughout the rest of America, she was just crowned Queen of the Swamp by the lobbyists and DC insiders that want to protect the failed status quo.โ
- On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling restoring Trump to the primary ballot in Colorado. The unsigned decision, with concurrences from the three liberal justices and a separate concurrence from Amy Coney Barrett, overturns a ruling from Coloradoโs Supreme Court that had disqualified Trump under the 14th Amendmentโs insurrection clause and removed him from the ballot. The Supreme Courtโs decision held that the responsibility for enforcing the relevant section of the 14th Amendment fell to Congress, not the states.
Trumpโs Path to the Nomination Runs Through Super Tuesday
Politically speaking, Donald Trump will head into Super Tuesdayโthe single day of the cycle with the most presidential nominating contestsโstronger and more secure than ever.
The Republican frontrunner has vanquished all but one of his major primary opponents. He remains incredibly popular within the Republican party, with 84 percent of self-identified Republican likely voters saying in a recent New York Times poll that they have a โveryโ or โsomewhatโ favorable view of him. His numerous legal problemsโfrom the financially draining civil lawsuits to his multiple criminal prosecutionsโhave enhanced his standing among Republicans and have not affected his general election prospects. Indeed, Trump has consistently led President Joe Biden in nearly every national poll this year, as well as in polls of most of the key swing states.
Now, Trump is at the precipice of one of his biggest primary-season victories since Super Tuesday 2016, when he won 7 out of 10 primaries. No, the former president wonโt be able to officially clinch the nomination tomorrow. Even if he were to win all 854 delegates to the Republican National Convention that are up for grabs across the 15 states holding GOP primaries, heโd still be a couple hundred short of the 1,215 necessary to have a majority.
But thatโs only a matter of time. The Republican National Committeeโs rules dictate that nominating contests from the Iowa caucuses through the Super Tuesday primaries must allocate delegates proportionally, which is how Haley has won 43 delegates despite only winning one primary so far. After Tuesdayโs primaries, however, state parties can award delegates on a winner-take-all basis, and nearly every upcoming Republican primary or caucus will.
A total victory for Trump across all 15 Super Tuesday statesโAlabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginiaโwould show a resounding statement of support from the GOP base. And while primary polling in nearly every one of these states is scant and unreliable, thereโs little doubt the results wonโt match the overwhelming preference for Trump over Haley as seen in national polls of primary voters.
Still, there may be some states where Haley could provide Trump with more of a contest.
Over the past few days, she picked up a few key endorsements from moderate Republicans in a handful of Super Tuesday states: Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, who endorsed Haley in January, even campaigned with her Sunday. Will those endorsements have any bearing on Republican primary voters in those states? What about the open primary in Virginia, with its wealth of politically engaged liberals in the Washington, D.C., suburbs who might be willing to vote against Trump?
But even a better-than-expected showing for Haley on Super Tuesday may only matter for the history books. The end of the line for the last challenger standing is nigh, and Trump looks to continue marching on, once again, to the nomination.
Nikki Haley on the GOPโs Future: Does It Include Her?
Nikki Haley has a warning for a Republican Party on the verge of nominating Donald Trump about the sizable chunk of GOP voters backing her.
โDonโt expect them to automatically vote with the party just because,โ she said Friday afternoon in a Dispatch Podcast interview. โIf they feel unwanted, if they feel unheard, if they feel like the Republican Partyโs not even trying to get them, they either wonโt voteโwhich, I hope they do, we should always voteโor they will find some other person to vote for.โ
We spoke with Haley as she brought her underdog bid for the Republican presidential nomination to Washington, D.C., where she addressed voters before flying off to points south, north, and west ahead of this weekโs Super Tuesday primaries. (The former South Carolina governor and ex-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations proceeded to win the D.C. GOP primary, her first victory, scooping up all 19 of the capital cityโs delegates to the Republican convention in Milwaukee.)
Haley was coy during the 35-minute conversation about how she might handle a Trump nomination.
The former president has ruled her out as a potential running mate, and she has similarly ruled out accepting any such invitation. She has not issued a blanket โnoโ to a potential third-party run, yet has said she could not run on the No Labels ticket because of the requirement that the vice presidential nominee be a Democrat. However, Haley did tell NBC News Meet The Press host Kristen Welker in a subsequent interview that she no longer feels bound by a pledge to endorse the winner of the GOP primary that she signed with the Republican National Committee last year.
โI have always said that I have serious concerns about Donald Trump; I have even more concerns about Joe Biden,โ Haley told Welker. โThe RNC pledgeโI mean at the time of the debate, we had to take it, to where, would you support the nominee? In order to get on that debate stage, you said yes. The RNC is now not the same RNC; now itโs Trumpโs daughter-in-law.โ
Haley was rather direct in discussing her disappointment with an evolving Republican Party, one that no longer appears to fit her as it once did, and what that means for the thousands of voters who have been supporting her in caucuses and primaries despite the long odds. As we reported just last week, many of these voters no longer feel welcome in the GOP the way they once did. And even though plenty of them have no interest or intention of voting for President Joe Biden, neither are they sure to support Trump.
โYou have a massive amount of people,โ Haley told us, โwho are saying, โWe donโt like that Republicans no longer care about how much theyโre spending. We donโt like that Republicans donโt want allies. We donโt like that Republicans are okay with deciding if you do like Donald Trump, youโre a Republican, and if you donโt want to be with Donald Trump, youโre a Democrat.โโ
โIt is my job and my duty to make sure that we fight for these people and that they have a voice and that they know thereโs a place theyโre not wrong,โ Haley added. โGuess what: At the end of the day, you canโt win without everybody.โ
You can watch the full interview here.
Notable and Quotable
โNo. I think Iโll make what decision I want to make.โ
โNikki Haley, when asked on Meet the Press if she will still honor the RNC pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee, March 3, 2024