(WASHINGTON) — Any voter who listened to a stump speech from former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley during her primary campaign against Donald Trump — which she just ended — was likely to hear a variation of one message: The former president can’t win in November because he’s been losing a notable minority of Republican voters.
“He lost 40% of the primary vote in all of the early states,” she said last week at a campaign rally in Minnesota. “You can’t win the general election if you can’t win that 40% [back].”
Haley was exaggerating. For example, in the 15 GOP states that voted on Super Tuesday, she has gotten less than 20% in six of them, with some ballots still being counted.
But while Trump has beaten Haley in all but two contests by double digits, he has lost approximately a third of the GOP vote — or more — in big states like Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia.
What’s more, in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont and Washington, D.C., Haley got at least 40% of the vote. She won Vermont and in Washington, D.C.
Overall, she’s received more than 30% of the Republican ballots.
Trump’s failure to win over those voters was at the heart of Haley’s rationale behind extending her campaign through Super Tuesday.
“If states like Colorado and Michigan and Minnesota want to start winning again, you have to have someone on the ticket who can win a general election,” she said last week outside Denver. “Donald Trump cannot win.”
However, extrapolating a Trump defeat in November solely based on his primary performances so far may not quite be an apples-to-apples comparison, past election cycles show.
Though Trump has other potential weaknesses, according to polls, like low favorability ratings and issues with suburban and college-educated voters, a messy primary doesn’t guarantee his general election defeat, according to historical examples and strategists who spoke with ABC News.
Both indicate that many Republican primary voters who backed someone other than Trump in the 2024 nomination race will find their way back to the Republican ballot line in November and that a third of the GOP is not forever lost to the former president, especially if Biden’s own approval ratings stay in the gutter.
“No matter what some of these voters are saying today, when the time comes and the choice becomes Donald Trump or Joe Biden, our belief is that the vast majority of Nikki Haley’s voters will end up voting for Donald Trump,” one Trump ally, who asked not to be quoted by name to speak more candidly, told ABC News after the Iowa caucuses in January.
“[It’s] very similar to how, if you recall, there were many Ted Cruz voters who in the middle of that primary claim they would never vote for Donald Trump, yet, when the time came, the vast majority of them all came home,” this person said.
Indeed, similar dynamics have played out in primaries past.
Biden famously struggled in some early states in the 2020 primary race against Sen. Bernie Sanders and others, winning only 16% in the Iowa caucuses, 8% in the New Hampshire primary and 20% in the Nevada primary before winning the South Carolina primary with still under 50% of the vote.
In November 2020, however, 94% of self-identified Democrats backed the now-president over Trump, according to exit polling.
Four years before that, Trump lost the Iowa caucuses to Texas Sen. Cruz, winning 24% of the vote to Cruz’s 28%. Trump only netted 35% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, 46% of the vote in Nevada and a third of the vote in South Carolina.
Cruz repeatedly hammered Trump over the results, saying at the time that 65% of Republicans “don’t think Donald can beat Hillary” Clinton. And he was later booed at the Republican National Convention in 2016 for failing to explicitly endorse Trump in his speech, only telling voters to “vote your conscience,” a position he later changed.
In the end, 88% of self-identified Republicans pulled the lever for Trump, the exit polling showed.
The trend is not strictly a recent one.
In the 2008 nominating race against Clinton, former President Barack Obama only won about 38% of the vote in the Iowa caucuses, 37% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, 45% in Nevada and only first broke the 50% mark in South Carolina, where he scored 55%.
Clinton at the time called for unity but also hesitated to drop out once Obama began pulling away with the nomination, saying in 2008, “I want what I have always fought for: I want the nearly 18 million people who voted for me to be respected and heard” — a line that echoes Haley’s argument today.
Obama went on to win 89% of liberals in the 2008 general election, per the exit polls.
Former President George W. Bush faced similar hurdles in some states in his 2000 nomination fight, failing to break 60% in any of the earliest GOP states before winning 81% of conservatives in the general election against Vice President Al Gore, according to exit polling.
And former President Bill Clinton barely broke a quarter of the vote in the earliest Democratic primary states in 1992 before winning 68% of liberals that November, exit polls found, with independent Ross Perot taking 18% of liberals but enough Republicans as well to help Clinton ascend to the White House.
Looking ahead to the 2024 race, observers cautioned that the past doesn’t predict the future, but the well-established pattern suggests that while a party’s voters may fracture between candidates in a primary, many of them eventually decide to rally behind the nominee.
Whether enough will do so in November to return Trump to the White House remains an open question that will only be answered on Election Day.
Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips is ending his long shot challenge to President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary, having failed to win any notable traction among voters with his message that the party needs a younger nominee.
“I’m going to suspend my campaign, and I will be right now endorsing President Biden. The choices are so clear … we only have two of them, and it’s going to be Donald Trump or Joe Biden,” Phillips said on Wednesday afternoon in a radio interview.
The decision comes after Biden won the congressman’s home state of Minnesota on Super Tuesday as well as the elimination of his staff ahead of the Michigan primary late last month, a state Phillips hoped to do well in.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The House is expected to vote on a package of six government funding bills Wednesday afternoon to avert a partial government shutdown before the Friday deadline.
Lawmakers are facing pressure with a pair of upcoming shutdown deadlines on March 8 and March 22 — a punt from last week’s shutdown threat. Funding for programs under six of the 12 appropriations bills runs out on Friday evening absent congressional action.
The good news is that it looks like Congress is on a glide path to stop a Friday partial shutdown. The package is expected to pass in the House, and Senate leaders are encouraging their colleagues to work together to pass the bills.
If Congress is successful, these six bills will be fully funded through the end of September.
The six compromise funding bills were unveiled jointly by House and Senate bipartisan leaders on Sunday, after many months of behind-the-scenes debate over how much these bills should costs, what policy provisions they ought to include, and what cuts could be made.
The $467.5 billion appropriations package will be voted on under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority to pass. That means, once again, Speaker Mike Johnson will have to rely on Democrats’ votes to pass it — a move that landed former speaker Kevin McCarthy in hot water and contributed to his ouster last year.
The package will provide funding for the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Energy, Interior, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development as well as the Food and Drug Administration, military construction and other federal programs.
Earlier this week, the House Freedom Caucus — a hard-line conservative group — came out against the funding package, saying in a statement that it “surrenders Republicans’ leverage to force radical Democrats to the table to truly secure the southern border and end the purposeful, dangerous mass release of illegal aliens into the United States.”
“As with other recent spending bills, it is likely this omnibus receives more Democrat than Republican support. House Freedom Caucus Members urge all Republicans to oppose both halves of the omnibus,” the group said.
According to GOP Whip Tom Emmer, first and last votes in the House are expected at 3:30 p.m. Walk-off the floor will be at 4:15 p.m.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed to try to move the bills quickly through the Senate once they pass in the House.
“As soon as the House sends the appropriations bills over to the Senate I will put these bills on the floor so we can have them on President Biden’s desk before Friday’s deadline,” Schumer said on the floor Tuesday. “But the clock is ticking and because of the State of the Union on Thursday, we need to cooperate to move extra fast to get these bills through. Between now and Friday the watch words for the Senate will be ‘cooperation’ and ‘speed.'”
Schumer said the Senate is “thankfully” off to a “very, very good start” to passing these bills. He touted the Democratic wins in the funding package.
“We passed these bills without devastating cuts or poison pill riders pushed by the MAGA right,” Schumer said. “We now have six bills that will preserve significant investments for American families, for moms and children, for clean energy, for American veterans and more.”
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said advancing the bills will be a “major step forward in one of our most basic responsibilities of government.”
“I am grateful to our colleagues for pushing sensible annual funding legislation one step closer to the president’s desk. I would certainly urge all of our colleagues to support it,” McConnell said Tuesday.
Though Congress is largely expected to pass these six bills expiring at week’s end before the deadline, there remains a funding fight looming the distance.
The other six funding bills, which lose funds on March 22, will likely prove much harder for Congress to pass. No deal has yet been struck on any compromise legislation, and, unlike some bills in the funding package being passed this week, none of the legislation in the next tranche of bills has been considered on the Senate floor.
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, a longtime critic of Donald Trump and a frequent target, on Wednesday endorsed him in the 2024 presidential race.
“It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States,” McConnell said in a statement Wednesday, just after Nikki Haley suspended her campaign.
“It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support,” McConnell added. “During his Presidency, we worked together to accomplish great things for the American people including tax reform that supercharged our economy and a generational change of our federal judiciary – most importantly, the Supreme Court.”
“I look forward to the opportunity of switching from playing defense against the terrible policies the Biden administration has pursued to a sustained offense geared towards making a real difference in improving the lives of the American people.”
Advisers close to Trump and McConnell had been in talks for six weeks over an endorsement, sources confirmed to ABC News, as well as an overall strategy to unite Republicans to win back the Senate in November.
The conversations between the two campaigns went through a single channel: Chris Lacivita, a top campaign adviser to Trump and Josh Holmes, a longtime political strategist to McConnell.
McConnell’s backing comes even though he has a strained relationship with the former president. The two men have not spoken since December 2020.
McConnell was highly critical of Trump after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, calling him morally and practically responsible for the violent riot. He suggested Trump should be prosecuted for his role in what transpired.
Meanwhile, Trump has viciously attacked McConnell over the years, calling his wife, former Trump Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, “Coco Chao” and suggesting she was a Chinese agent.
Now that he is the last major GOP candidate standing, Trump is calling for unity as his campaign enters the general election phase.
“We have a great Republican Party with tremendous talent,” he said Tuesday night. “And we want to have unity and we’re going to have unity and it’s going to happen very quickly.”
McConnell, the longest serving Senate leader in history, recently announced he will step down from the position but made it clear he will do everything he can to win back the Senate.
“I still have enough gas in the tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics, and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm which they have become accustomed,” McConnell said.
-ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(CHARLESTON, Sc.) — Nikki Haley announced Wednesday she is ending her presidential campaign, though stopped short of endorsing Donald Trump.
“I am filled with the gratitude for the outpouring of support we’ve received from all across our great country,” Haley said from Charleston, South Carolina. “But the time has now come to suspend my campaign.”
“I said I wanted Americans to have their voice. I have done that,” she continued. “I have no regrets. And although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe.”
Her decision, which comes after resounding losses across the country on Super Tuesday, leaves Donald Trump as the last major candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination.
Haley acknowledged in her brief remarks that Trump is now all but certain be the GOP nominee after the party’s convention in July.
“I congratulate him and wish him well. I wish anyone well who would be America’s president,” she said. “Our country is too precious to let our differences divide us.”
She didn’t explicitly endorse him, however, saying: “I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee. But on this question, as she did on so many others, Margaret Thatcher provided some good advice When she said, ‘Never just follow the crap. Always make up your own mind.'”
“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it, who did not support it,” she added. “And I hope he does that. At its best politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Republican presidential candidate, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks at a campaign rally on March 4, 2024 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Emil Lippe/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is planning on suspending her campaign for president in the wake of a slew of Super Tuesday losses, campaign sources tell ABC News.
This now leaves leaving former President Donald Trump as the last major candidate standing among Republicans, all but guaranteeing him the party’s nomination on his way to a likely rematch with President Joe Biden in November.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden are projected to have handily won their respective primaries on Super Tuesday, even if a clean sweep proved elusive for them both.
Trump is projected to only lose the Vermont primary to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, whose own future remains up in the air after Tuesday.
And Biden was defeated in the American Samoa primary, though that contest is not believed to be indicative of his broader standing in the Democratic Party as it attracted only about 100 votes.
The results set up the general election between Trump and Biden — some eight months away — as well as races for several key down-ballot contests.
Here are five takeaways from Super Tuesday:
Trump trounces Haley
Trump continued to perform well — and sometimes very well — in the GOP primaries, handily defeating Haley in most states, ABC News projects.
Even though he is set to lose Vermont by single digits, his margins elsewhere were strong: He was ahead of Haley by more than 50 points in delegate-rich California with just under half of the expected vote tallied; he was ahead of Haley by over 60 points in Texas with over 80% of the expected vote counted; and he broke 80% of the vote in Alabama with more than 90% of expected ballots reported.
Thus far, he’s only lost Vermont and the District of Columbia, though neither is anticipated to amount to anything more than a speed bump on his path to his third straight Republican nomination. (Haley won less than 40,000 votes between Vermont and the district. By comparison, Trump won more than 450,000 votes in Haley’s home state of South Carolina.)
Trump did perform far better in rural areas than in cities and suburbs, which will likely fuel further questions about how he’ll perform with those groups in November given that they’ve shifted away from him since 2016.
Notably, 78% of Haley voters in the North Carolina Republican presidential primary, 69% in California and 68% in Virginia were unwilling to say they’ll support the party’s nominee whoever it is, according to preliminary exit polls.
However, history shows that a messy primary doesn’t guarantee defeat in the general: Trump struggled to even win majorities in multiple 2016 GOP nominating contests, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, proved a far more formidable foe at the time than Haley has this year. But Trump was still able to coalesce much of the party by November 2016, earning the support of 90% of Republicans, per exit polling.
Haley’s electoral future is unclear
While Trump’s path to the nomination is clear, Haley’s future is much cloudier.
The South Carolina Republican, a former Trump ambassador who has become a vocal critic of his influence over the party while running against him, made history by being the first Republican woman to win a presidential primary.
But she’s also been facing mounting speculation over when — not if — she would suspend her campaign amid so many other repeated losses. Haley had insisted that she would stay in the race through Super Tuesday and aim to be “competitive” there, but she has no campaign events scheduled and a statement on Tuesday’s results did not include any language about hitting the road any time soon.
“Unity is not achieved by simply claiming ‘we’re united.’ Today, in state after state, there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump. That is not the unity our party needs for success. Addressing those voters’ concerns will make the Republican Party and America better,” Haley spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said.
Biden breezes through, but non-Biden votes stick out
The president had a good night based on the results, routinely getting at least 80% of the vote in many states with much but not all of the ballots counted.
Other than a quirky defeat in American Samoa, the campaign performed well and is projected to win all 15 Democratic states as Biden looks to kick into high gear against Trump.
“As we continue to watch results come in from states across the country, including my home state of California, this is an energizing moment for our campaign,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement.
Still, potential dissatisfaction among Democratic voters — particularly in some swing states — lurked under the surface.
The “uncommitted” option had earned about 19% of the vote in Minnesota with about 89% of the expected vote reported. That choice was being pushed by some advocates as a protest vote over Biden’s handling of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Separately, 13% of Democratic primary voters in North Carolina voted “no preference” with almost all ballots reported.
Those numbers come after more than 100,000 Democratic primary voters in Michigan voted “uncommitted,” too.
“In Minnesota and across other states on Super Tuesday, we are joining, just like in Michigan, the uncommitted vote, which is really a strong protest vote that President Biden needs to listen to his constituents,” organizer Jaylani Hussein said on ABC News Live earlier Tuesday.
The general election kicks off
Trump and Biden have never really come close to losing their polling leads in their primary races and began winning contests in January as soon as voting started.
But Tuesday night, one thing was clear from the results and their messaging: The general election is officially on.
In his victory speech, Trump didn’t mention Haley once, focusing his fire solely on Biden.
“All of the problems that you have today, I don’t think you would have had any of them, you’d only have success. And that’s what’s ultimately going to unify this country and unify this party. We have a great Republican Party with tremendous talent. And we want to have unity and we’re going to have unity and it’s going to happen very quickly,” he said in a speech at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.
“We’re going to win this election,” he said. “If we lose this election, we’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Biden had a similar focus: Trump and the threat that Biden argues he poses to democracy.
“Tonight’s results leave the American people with a clear choice: Are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?” the president said in a statement.
“My message to the country is this: Every generation of Americans will face a moment when it has to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedom. Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights. To every Democrat, Republican, and independent who believes in a free and fair America: This is our moment,” Biden said. “This is our fight. Together, we will win.”
Key down-ballot races set up
Along with the White House race, the battle for the Senate, House and a key governorship were also put in sharp relief Tuesday.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff is projected to face off against Steve Garvey, the leading Republican candidate in California’s Senate race to succeed the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The state has a jungle primary, meaning the top two vote-getters advance to the general election.
Rep. Katie Porter, another Democrat, was also running with colleague Barbara Lee against Schiff. Had either of them earned one of the top spots, it would have set up a likely expensive intraparty battle that could have diverted donor money from key House races in California or other states.
Voters on Tuesday also set up a contest between Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who is running for a third term, and Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, who is trying to unseat him and finally nab a statewide seat for Democrats in Texas — long a white whale for the party.
And North Carolina’s gubernatorial race is projected to see Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican, and Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein face off against each other in the marquee race for a governor’s mansion this year.
The results also established the two contenders for key House races in California later this year, and in Alabama, Republican Rep. Barry Moore is projected to win a redistricting-driven incumbent-on-incumbent race against fellow GOP Rep. Jerry Carl.
(WASHINGTON) — Super Tuesday — the biggest election day of the year until November — was a largely predictable affair, save for a couple minor surprises throughout the night.
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump continue to dominate the race for the White House after voters in 16 states and the territory of American Samoa headed to the polls.
Several significant down-ballot races also started to shape up after Tuesday’s primaries.
Here’s a recap of the major action:
Where Trump is projected to win
Trump continued to trounce former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, his only remaining serious GOP opponent.
So far, ABC News projects that Trump will beat Haley in 14 GOP Super Tuesday contests. That includes the delegate-rich states of California and Texas as well as Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Alaska and Virginia.
Haley is projected to have managed to eke out a win Tuesday in Vermont, in what would be only her second victory against Trump after winning the District of Columbia’s primary over the weekend.
Her campaign said in a statement that Tuesday’s results, in which she was attracting more than 30% of the partial vote totals in some states, show that “there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns” about Trump.
Where Biden is projected to win
Biden, who continues to face long shot challengers Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson in his bid for reelection, also dominated on Super Tuesday.
ABC News projects that he will win in 15 states — the delegate-heavy California and Texas as well as Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.
But Biden saw his first loss in the nominating race so far on Tuesday after little-known candidate Jason Palmer won the Democratic presidential caucuses for American Samoa, the local Democratic Party chair confirmed to ABC News.
With 99% of the expected vote reporting, Palmer led with 56% of the vote, followed by Biden with 44%, though the overall vote total was fewer than 100 ballots between both candidates and Biden’s campaign sought to shrug off the outcome as unique.
Separately, the “uncommitted” option in the Democratic races, which was used as an anti-Biden choice in Michigan’s primary to protest his stance on the Israel-Hamas war, continued to attract some ballots in other states — perhaps most notably in Minnesota, with more than 45,000.
Biden, Trump gear up for general election
With Biden and Trump closer to clinching their respective nominations, the two took aim at each other on Tuesday, making clear that they see the general election as already underway.
Biden said in a statement that Super Tuesday’s results “leave the American people with a clear choice: Are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?”
He argued that a Trump White House risks progress in job growth, wage increases and “taking on Big Pharma and the gun lobby” — and threatens “fundamental freedoms” like women’s health-care autonomy around abortion access and other issues.
Biden said Tuesday’s results showed that millions of voters “are ready to fight back against Donald Trump’s extreme plan to take us backwards.”
During an address from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night, Trump said Super Tuesday was “conclusive” and an “amazing night.”
He called Biden the “worst president in American history” while addressing campaign topics like high inflation and high crossings at the southern border.
Trump did not mention Haley.
Nominees named in key local races
Several key down-ballot races are also coming into focus after Super Tuesday.
In California’s battle to fill the seat left vacant by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, ABC News projects that Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey, a former Major League Baseball player, will advance to the general election in November.
In North Carolina, ABC News projects that Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican, and Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, will face off in the nation’s marquee gubernatorial contest later this year.
In Texas, ABC News projects that Democratic Rep. Colin Allred will vie to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz, who is seeking a third term.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee — who jumped back into the House race after losing a campaign for Houston mayor — will also win the Democratic primary for her reelection bid, ABC News projects.
Voters weighed in on two House races in Alabama following court-ordered redistricting of the state’s congressional map to increase the power of Black voters. In an incumbent-on-incumbent contest that took place in the 1st District between Republican Reps. Jerry Carl and Barry Moore, ABC News projects that Moore will win.
A primary was also held in the newly created 2nd Congressional District, where 11 Democrats ran for the party’s nomination. ABC News projects that Shomari Figures will advance to a runoff alongside Anthony Daniels.
(WASHINGTON) — Preliminary Super Tuesday exit poll results show weaknesses for Joe Biden and Donald Trump alike among independent voters while also raising questions about the extent to which supporters of Nikki Haley would turn out for Trump in November if he beats her for the Republican presidential nomination.
In sum, the findings in California, North Carolina and Virginia — the three states with exit polls on Tuesday — mark challenges facing both President Biden and former President Trump in an expected November face-off.
Notably, 78% of Haley voters in the North Carolina Republican presidential primary, 69% in California and 68% in Virginia are unwilling to say they’ll support the party’s nominee whoever it is, mirroring Haley’s recent hedge on the issue. Just 21, 26 and 27%, respectively, take the pledge.
Moreover, as in previous primaries, large majorities of Haley voters say Trump would be unfit for office if convicted of a crime, say they’d be dissatisfied with him as the nominee and reject his claim that Biden didn’t legitimately win in 2020, a tenet of Trump’s campaign. (Trump faces 91 charges and denies all wrongdoing.)
In other signs of distance from Trump supporters, most Haley voters oppose a federal abortion ban and support a chance for most unauthorized immigrants to apply for legal status. In questions asked only in California, Haley voters overwhelmingly are dissatisfied with the 2022 Supreme Court ruling eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion and 54% disapprove of Trump’s performance as president.
In a potential boost to Biden, 48% of Haley voters in North Carolina and Virginia alike approve of his work as president; this drops to 30% in California. Combined across the three states, 40% of Haley voters approve of Biden’s job performance, 58% disapprove.
The question, then, is both whether some Haley voters may shift to Biden in November as well as how many will turn out for Trump if, as expected, he wins his party’s nomination.
Overall, Democrats account for just 4% of GOP primary voters in these three primaries. They concentrate as Haley voters and Biden approvers: Among Haley voters who approve of Biden, 28% are Democrats, 47% are independents and 26% are Republicans. (Among Haley voters who disapprove of Biden, by contrast, just 2% are Democrats, 34% independents, 64% Republicans.)
Additionally, among Haley voters who approve of Biden, 84% are moderates or liberals and 16% are conservatives. Among those who disapprove of Biden, 39% are moderates or liberals and 61% are conservative.
Haley voters who approve of Biden are more optimistic about the country and the economy alike. They have a 53-44% positive-negative view of the way things are going in the country and a 72-28% positive-negative view of the nation’s economy. Among Haley voters who disapprove of Biden, it’s 14-86% positive-negative on the way things are going and 26-73% positive-negative on the economy.
Virginia’s exit polling
The polls have closed in Virginia and an analysis of the exit polls show that Biden won the Democratic primary and Trump won the Virginia Republican presidential primary.
Fewer evangelical white Christians turned out than in other southern states for which ABC News has exit poll data (39% in Virginia; 52% in North Carolina and 61% last week in South Carolina), but 79% of them backed Trump, holding their position as one of his strongest support groups this year. Two-thirds were conservatives, and Trump again cruised in this group, with 77% support.
Haley split independents with Trump (49-48%); among the 10% of Virginia GOP primary voters who identified themselves as Democrats, she won 84%. She also split college graduates with Trump. But Trump easily won non-graduates, with 78%; this, along with his hold on core Republicans, gave him a broad victory in Virginia.
North Carolina’s exit polls
Trump is the projected winner in the North Carolina primary, which was well suited for him, per exit polling — with 78% of voters identifying themselves as conservatives, half of them “very” conservative and 53% as white evangelical Christians.
More than half, 56% in the exit poll results, don’t have a college degree — with each of these a strong group for Trump. He also benefited from broad anti-immigrant sentiment, with 41% calling it their top issue (compared to 33% who cited the economy) and 63% favoring deportation of most immigrants in the country illegally. Sixty-five percent said Trump would be fit for office even if convicted of a crime — but even there, 31% of Republican primary voters said he would not.
California Senate primary, Trump’s win
In winning the California GOP primary, Trump benefited from 82% support among conservatives who accounted for nearly seven in 10 voters in the state, according to preliminary exit poll results. That more than compensated for a comparative dearth of white evangelical Christians. But so complete was his victory here that he also easily won independent voters, a group in which Haley has done better elsewhere.
Fifty-nine percent of voters in the primary were in favor of the Supreme Court ruling ending the constitutional right to an abortion; 69% favored deporting most undocumented immigrants. And Trump prevailed by wide margins in trust to handle border security and the economy alike.
Another window on the November election is available via California’s open primary for the U.S. Senate, a so-called jungle primary in which both Democrats and Republicans run and the two top finishers on Tuesday, regardless of party, advance to the November general election.
Helpfully for Biden, among California Democrats who voted in the Senate primary, 83% in the preliminary poll results approve of how he is handling his job as president. But among independents — often swing voters in national elections — just 35% approve of Biden’s job performance while 65% disapprove. (Among Republicans, disapproval of Biden reaches a near-unanimous 92.)
Trump matches Biden in his base — 83 percent of Republicans in the Senate open primary approve of how Trump handled the job when he was president.
Among independents, however, fewer approve, 43%, while 56% disapprove. (Among Democrats, 97 percent disapprove.)
In the open primary for the seat left vacant by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Democrats account for 43% of voters in these preliminary results; 37% are independents and 20% are Republicans.
The race pits three prominent Democratic lawmakers — Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff — against a Republican, Steve Garvey, with a question whether the Democrats split the vote in a way that opens the door to Garvey in a runoff between the top two finishers.
On another front, 60% of independents voting in the California Senate primary say they would not see Trump as fit to be president if he were convicted of a crime. And in Trump’s own party, 28% of Republicans say the same.
Beyond his approval rating, challenges for Biden are reflected in economic attitudes among California Senate primary voters. Fifty-five percent overall say the economy is in not so good or poor shape — including 66% of independents. And just 14% overall, including 11% of independents, say their family is getting ahead financially.
Neither result bodes particularly well for an incumbent president.
A risk for Trump, beyond his criminal exposure, is that 71% of Californians in the Senate open primary say they are dissatisfied or angry about the U.S. Supreme Court decision eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion — including 62% of independents and even 34% of Republicans.
Further, fewer than half of independents, 41%, think most immigrants who are in the country illegally should be deported and most independents, 66%, reject Trump’s false claim that Biden didn’t legitimately win the 2020 election.
A focus on independents is justified given their swing voter status. Trump won independents in six swing states where he defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Biden then won independents in all six of those states in 2020, moving all but North Carolina back into the Democratic column.
Nationally, presidential winners have prevailed among independents in all but three elections since 1976 (in 2012, 2004 and 1976, per exit polls).
Notable among other results
In the Republican presidential primaries, white evangelical Christians, a strong group for Trump this year, account for 52% of voters in North Carolina, dropping to 36% in Virginia and 22% in California. Very conservative voters, also especially strong for Trump, make up 39% in North Carolina, 28% in Virginia and 26% in California.
Comparisons to 2016 show that very conservative and white evangelical voters are the groups in which Trump consistently has gained the most ground.
In New Hampshire this year, he was up 20 points overall vs. 2016, but 53 points among very conservatives and 42 points among white evangelicals. In South Carolina, up 28 points overall but 55 points among very conservative and 37 points among white evangelicals. (2016 numbers aren’t available for California.)
Exit polls have been conducted in Republican contests in six states to date: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and now California, North Carolina and Virginia.
Aggregate results (proportional to turnout) show the extent to which pro-Trump groups have turned out and also mark demographic differences with general election voters, with far more conservatives, white people and white evangelicals in the GOP electorate.
Attitudinally, in aggregate, majorities of voters in these 2024 Republican primaries buy into Trump’s falsehood that Biden was not legitimately elected, favor deporting most unauthorized immigrants and say he would be fit for office even if convicted of a crime.
Fewer but still 41% favor a federal ban on abortion. And a broad 81% rate the economy negatively while 85% are dissatisfied or even angry at the way things are going in the country.
Many fewer, though, identify themselves as part of Trump’s MAGA movement.
These aggregate results conceal some differences among states — 61% in Iowa favored a federal ban on abortion, for example, while 67% in New Hampshire opposed this. And aggregate views in these six states may not reflect those among Republican voters elsewhere.
Overall, Democrats account for just 4% of GOP primary voters in these three primaries. They concentrate as Haley voters and Biden approvers: Among Haley voters who approve of Biden, 28% are Democrats, 47% are independents and 26% are Republicans. (Among Haley voters who disapprove of Biden, by contrast, just 2% are Democrats, 34% independents, 64% Republicans.)
Additionally, among Haley voters who approve of Biden, 84% are moderates or liberals, 16% conservatives. Among those who disapprove of Biden, 39% are moderates or liberals while 61% are conservatives.
Haley voters who approve of Biden are more optimistic about the country and the economy alike. They have a 53-44% (positive-negative) view of the way things are going in the country and a 72-28% (positive-negative) view of the nation’s economy.
Among Haley voters who disapprove of Biden, it’s 14-86% (positive-negative) on the way things are going and 26-73% (positive-negative) on the economy.
Across all six states for which there are GOP exit polls in the nominating races this year, 17% of Haley voters say Trump would be fit if convicted of a crime, 79% say not fit.
Naturally, the general election electorate next fall will be different than the makeup of Super Tuesday voters, both in California (which hasn’t voted for a Republican candidate for president since 1988) and elsewhere.
The new exit poll results nonetheless may be generally indicative of the difficulties awaiting both leading candidates.
Note that these are preliminary exit poll results. Findings may shift as results are weighted to actual vote totals, which won’t happen in California until approximately 1:30 a.m. EST. (Additionally, the California survey, while referred to here as an exit poll, was conducted by phone and email in advance of Election Day, given the preponderance of early voting in the state.)
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s campaign sees this week as a focal point, with both Super Tuesday and his State of the Union address on Thursday crystalizing to voters that this election will be a Biden versus Trump rematch.
The president’s campaign has been eager for the general election to begin in earnest so they can more effectively draw the contrast with Trump.
For the past several months, they say, people have not been fully tuned in to the political cycle. This week, campaign officials say, is the moment when that starts to change.
In fact, one campaign official says it’s helpful for Trump to be in the limelight and news cycle more, so Americans can be reminded of what they called his “dangerous ideas,” such as his recent remarks that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America. These comments help push swing voters – who will decide this election – towards Biden, the campaign official said.
The president will ramp up attacks on Trump, which the campaign says have been getting under Trump’s skin. For instance, when the president said on “Late Night with Seth Myers” that Trump can’t remember his wife’s name, the next day Trump blasted Biden’s comments in a Truth Social video.
One campaign official says Trump’s response proves his ego took a hit and that his reaction gave the Biden team a window to attack Trump again in a post on social media.
The campaign will have a watch party, war room and boiler room Tuesday night to examine Super Tuesday data. Officials say they’ll be closely watching where and which demographics Trump underperforms with — they point to what they say is his weakness with suburban voters and female voters. The campaign will also be monitoring what they’ve seen so far as stronger-than-expected turnout in uncontested Democratic primaries.
They have staff on the ground in the battleground states as a warmup and trial run for the general election. The campaign continues to ramp up its operations in battleground states, with plans to open 31 offices in Wisconsin in the next several weeks.
The campaign sees Biden’s State of the Union speech as one of the biggest moments for the president ahead of November, and a critical moment for him to set the scene for what his campaign will be about. They say they’re aware that much of the electorate is deeply disengaged and needs to be persuaded.
The campaign continues to brush off poor polling as overestimating Trump’s popularity. They argue that the Biden campaign has a larger war chest that’s focused on voter outreach, whereas much of the Trump campaign and RNC funds will be funneled towards helping cover Trump’s legal fees.
