Primary Results Reveal Republican Divisions And Trump's General Election Vulnerabilities
Primary Results Reveal Republican Divisions And Trump's General Election Vulnerabilities
Across four competitive Republican primaries, Donald Trump has lost between 30-48% of the vote. The Republican Party is far from united, and Trump has significant general election vulnerabilities.
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We now have enough primary election data to definitively say the Republican Party is far from united and Donald Trump has significant general election vulnerabilities.
I’ve written about how the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primary showcased Trump’s political weaknesses. Now, South Carolina and Michigan have affirmed that data.
Real-world elections are a far better indicator of voter behavior than polls. And the results send a resounding message: Trump is a lot weaker than the prevailing narratives proclaim.
The numbers have been strikingly consistent. In every competitive primary this year where both Donald Trump and his rivals have been on the ballot, Trump has lost between 30-48% of the vote. Exit polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina all found that over 30% of Republican primary voters say he’d be unfit for President if he’s convicted, and over 50% don’t identify with the MAGA movement.
Let’s get into those results.
Michigan, a key swing state: Donald Trump won 68.2% (756k+ votes) of the Republican primary electorate, Nikki Haley won 26.6% (294k+ votes), 3% voted “Uncommitted,” and 1.2% went to Ron DeSantis.
South Carolina, Haley’s home state: Donald Trump won 59.8% of Republican primary voters, and Nikki Haley won 39.5%.
New Hampshire Primary: Donald Trump won 54.3% of the vote, and Nikki Haley won 43.2% of the vote:
Iowa Caucuses: Donald Trump won 51% of the vote, and his rivals won a combined 48% of the vote.
Trump dramatically underperformed polling in all four of those states.
In spite of some of the narratives we’ve seen in the media, it’s actually not impressive at all that the former President, who is essentially running as an incumbent for his party’s nomination, is losing 30-48% of the vote in Republican primaries. In fact, it showcases significant weaknesses.
South Carolina and Michigan’s results came amid a political reality where everyone essentially accepts that Haley doesn’t have a realistic path to the Republican nomination. But voters are still showing up to send a message. That highlights the resilience of opposition to Trump.
It’s important to note that these have all been open primaries, so many Republican-leaning Independents have participated. But Trump will need those voters in order to win the general election.
Trump is far from dominating this primary process, and the exit polls, in particular, spell potential disaster for the MAGA movement in the general election.
Exit Polls Expose Trump’s Vulnerabilities
We don’t have exit polls from Michigan, but exit polls in South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Iowa all paint the same picture of Trump’s vulnerabilities.
Weakness with Moderates and Independents
While Trump won 74% of New Hampshire Republican primary voters, Haley still managed to get 25%. With Independents, who were 44% of New Hampshire primary voters, the results were flipped. Haley won 58% of Independents, and Trump won only 39%. In South Carolina, Nikki Haley won 62% of Independents and 30% of Republicans. This shows a real vulnerability for Trump.
Donald Trump can’t win the general election if he’s losing Republican-leaning Independents and moderate Republicans like he’s clearly doing in these primary races.
The question is, will those opposing Trump in the primary unite behind him in the general election? Other data gives us insight into the potential answer.
Haley voters vow to oppose Trump in the general election
Compounding Trump’s weakness with Independents and moderate Republicans is a striking stat from a Fox News voter analysis. It found that 35% of New Hampshire primary voters would be so dissatisfied if Trump were the nominee that they wouldn’t vote for him in the general election. An NBC News/Des Moines Register poll echoed this finding, showing that 43% of Haley voters said they would back Biden in the general election.
In South Carolina, 31% of Republican primary voters, including 96% of Haley voters, said they’d be dissatisfied if Trump wins the nomination. In New Hampshire, we saw similar results, with 38% of Republican primary voters and 94% of Haley voters saying they’d be dissatisfied with a Trump nomination.
Whether this clear primary voter dissatisfaction with Trump will translate to general election opposition to Trump is yet to be seen. Time will tell. But these numbers should scare the Trump Campaign.
MAGA movement grows increasingly toxic
54% of South Carolina primary voters and 63% of New Hampshire primary voters said they don’t identify as part of the MAGA movement. About half of Iowa Republican caucusgoers, which is a very conservative and evangelical electorate, also said they don’t identify with the movement.
MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) is literally Trump’s campaign slogan and the core of his appeal. President Biden’s efforts to accurately depict the MAGA movement as extreme have likely made people less willing to publicly identify with it.
Trump’s criminality could doom him
36% of South Carolina Republican primary voters, 42% of New Hampshire primary voters, and 31% of Iowa Republican caucus voters said Trump wouldn’t be fit to serve as President if he’s convicted of a crime.
Interestingly, those views on a Trump conviction almost precisely correlate with Republican primary voter views on whether Biden won the 2020 election legitimately.
36% of South Carolina Republican primary voters, 46% of New Hampshire primary voters, and 29% of Iowa Republican caucus voters said Biden won the 2020 election legitimately.
This really caught my eye. The fact that between 31-42% of Republican primary voters believe Trump is unfit for office if convicted and 29-46% believe Biden won legitimately indicates that the 2020 election subversion trial, in particular, could deeply damage Donald Trump’s general election chances.
Trump’s vulnerabilities have been laid bare. How will the Biden Campaign target them?
How Biden Can Exploit Trump’s Weaknesses
President Biden’s winning coalition in 2020 consisted of a wide tent. Progressives, moderate Democrats, moderate Republicans, and Independents united to take down Donald Trump.
The moderate Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents showing up to oppose Trump in these primary races are primed for Democratic messaging. The Biden Campaign is likely already seeking to target Haley voters to try and convert them ahead of the November election.
Speaking to issues these swing voters care about will be key. 44% of South Carolina and 67% of New Hampshire Republican primary voters said they oppose banning most or all abortions. Highlighting Trump’s plans to restrict abortion would be a smart messaging tactic for Biden.
While the Biden Campaign reaches out beyond the base, they also need to ensure their core coalition is fired up and fully behind him.
President Biden has demonstrated strong party unity throughout the Democratic primaries, winning 96% in South Carolina, 89% in Nevada, and a remarkable 63.9% in a write-in race in New Hampshire, where he wasn’t even on the ballot. In Michigan, Biden won 81% of the vote, but there were some warning signs the Biden Campaign should be paying attention to.
In the biggest real-world test of Democratic sentiment around Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, 100k+ voters (about 13%) voted “Uncommitted” in the Michigan primary. Pro-Palestinian groups, with the help of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), organized this effort to send a message of dissatisfaction with Biden’s approach to Israel amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
To put this in context, incumbent President Obama faced a 10.69% uncommitted vote in the 2012 Michigan primary.
While this is certainly not equivalent to the opposition Trump faces within his own party, I do think this isn’t something Democrats should totally ignore or dismiss. There is very real hurt and pain in the Arab American community over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. While Israel claims they are targeting Hamas for their horrific terrorist attack on 10/7, nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed. There is a groundswell of support for Biden to do more to end this violence.
It appears the Biden Administration has been taking this seriously, and we could see a broader change in policy. The Biden Administration has escalated its calls for Israel to prioritize human rights and direct pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. President Biden said another temporary ceasefire could come as early as next week.
The Biden Administration has been vetoing ceasefire resolutions at the UN, but in a shift, they’ve drafted a new resolution that calls for a temporary ceasefire and opposition to an Israeli assault on Rafah.
But in perhaps the biggest policy shift that could yield the most results, President Biden issued a directive that attaches human rights conditions to foreign aid. The directive authorizes “a swift cutoff of military aid to countries that violate international protections of civilians.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) praised the move: “This is a sea-change in terms of how you approach U.S. military aid and its impact on civilians.” We’ll see if this change makes an impact.
In this case, it’s pretty clear that those who oppose Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war don’t see Donald “Muslim Ban” Trump as a viable alternative - he would be much worse and likely encourage more violence. These voters will either vote for Biden or sit out the election. We’ll see how Biden’s efforts to end violence in Gaza pan out and whether those changes impact some of the support he’s lost among Arab Americans.
Beating Donald Trump will require a unified Democratic Party that can fully take advantage of his very clear electoral weaknesses. The threat of Trump himself has often proven the biggest unifying force for Democrats. That very well may be the case again this year.
A lot can change between now and November. But at the moment, given all the results I outlined in this piece, I think any data-driven political operative would rather be Biden than Trump.
