5 reasons why Tuesday’s primaries were a 'warning sign' for Trump

15 May 2024

On Tuesday, May 14, primary elections were held in three states: Maryland, Nebraska and West Virginia. And some of the GOP primaries showed that there is still a lot of support for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley — despite the fact that she discontinued her presidential campaign in early March.

When Haley's campaign ended, Trump became the GOP's presumptive 2024 presidential nominee. Yet some Republican primary voters are still voicing their support for Haley, which Politico and Newsweek describe as a major "warning sign" for Trump's campaign.

"A week after Nikki Haley earned 22 percent of the vote in Indiana's open GOP primary," Politico reporters Steven Shepard and Madison Fernandez explain, "the widespread expectation was that different rules in the states voting on Tuesday would take a huge chunk out of support for her zombie presidential candidacy…. Unlike Indiana, where voters can pick any primary ballot they'd like, the GOP primary was open only to registered Republicans in Maryland and Nebraska, and registered Republicans and independents in West Virginia."

The journalists add, "Despite its semi-open primary, West Virginia was the Trumpiest of the three states: The former president captured 88 percent of the vote there. But there were significant pockets of Trump resistance among Republicans in Maryland and Nebraska."

Shepard and Madison Fernandez stress that although "it wasn’t shocking to see Haley break 30 percent in the affluent D.C. suburbs of Montgomery County, Maryland…. It's more concerning for Trump that she's at 23 percent in Douglas County, Nebraska."

The Politico reporters, in their listicle, lay out five takeaways from the May 14 primaries: (1) "Closed primaries didn’t eliminate the warning signs for Trump," (2) "the Democratic establishment strikes back," (3) "the Biden protest vote fizzles," (4) "big-spending outside groups notched wins, while self-funders flopped," and (5) "incumbents flex their muscle."

Newsweek's Ewan Palmer, in an article published on May 15, stresses that the votes for Haley show that Trump is still "struggling to fully win over Republicans beyond his MAGA base."

"There have been multiple polls which suggest that Haley supporters will not go on to vote for Trump in the 2024 election, with Biden's campaign team also said to be hoping to win over these disillusioned Republicans," Palmer reports. "The results in Maryland and Nebraska continue the trend of Haley still receiving sizable votes in the GOP primary despite dropping out of the race in March in the wake of Super Tuesday."

Palmer adds, "On May 7, Trump easily won the Indiana primary with 78.3 percent of the vote, with Haley receiving 21.7 percent of the vote — a total that amounted to more than 128,000 votes. Similar potentially worrying results for Trump were seen in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, where Haley received more than 158,000 votes: 16.6 percent. Trump was beaten in Pennsylvania by Biden in 2020 by a margin of just over one percent: 80,555 votes. Haley also received more than 26 percent and 18 percent of the GOP primary vote in the key swing states of Michigan and Arizona respectively, amounting to hundreds of thousands of votes."

National polls released in May have been showing a very close race. A Yahoo News poll released on May 14 found Trump and Biden in a dead heat, but a Morning Consult poll released that same day found Trump ahead by 1 percent. Biden, however, led Trump by 2 percent in an I&I/TIPP Insights poll.

Read Politico's full article at this link and Newsweek's report here.

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