It’s not a good sign to be losing Deep Red Indiana, and certainly not in double digits, one out of every five votes cast. Ouch. This was Donald Trump’s present from Indiana Republicans last night after he managed to survive Stormy Daniels’ day in court — her first. She will return on Thursday. Meanwhile, Nikki Haley’s winning streak has continued. She dropped out two months ago but that did not prevent her from pulling 17.8% of the primary vote in Arizona, 13.2% in Georgia and 16.1% in Kansas. And then last night was the real crusher, 21.7% in Indiana. And don’t forget 43.2% in New Hampshire. Clearly, there’s a pattern and there’s a message here:
Tuesday night as the Indiana results were still coming in but pretty much solidified, David Nir, publisher of Daily Kos Elections, asked, “Is Nikki Haley getting *more* popular? Right now, she’s at 21.6% in Indiana with more than 70% reporting. If it holds, that would be her best showing since dropping out after Super Tuesday.”
Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, replied, “No. It doesn’t have much at all to do with Nikki Haley. It’s that the broadest coalition in American politics is the anti-Trump coalition.”
Amanda Carpenter, a Republican political commentator who once worked for far-right GOP lawmakers including Senators Ted Cruz and Jim DeMint, agrees with the anti-Trump theory.
“It’s almost as if…more and more Republicans, each day, are rejecting Trump. Perhaps these [Indiana] voters heard what their former congressman and Governor and later Vice President Mike Pence had to say about the president he served?” she wrote. “In all seriousness though, this is not a Nikki Haley movement showing up in double digits in multiple states. It’s anti-Trump GOP voters. Can you hear them yet? This is real.”
And yes, there is nothing new about the “zombie vote” which is voting for a candidate that’s not in the race. The salient question is, what becomes of those votes that go to the zombie? Do they automatically go to the frontrunner? Or, do people stay home or what? Donald Trump seems to think that 1. There aren’t that many Haley voters and 2. They’ll fall right into line behind him. Mebbe. Mebbe not. Mebbe they’ll vote for Joe Biden.
“For Mr. Trump,” the Times adds, “what matters is how many of Ms. Haley’s primary voters will rally behind him come November. Polls have shown that her supporters are likely to say they will vote for Mr. Biden. Even so, those same polls often find that many of those voters already supported Mr. Biden in 2020.”
Here’s the bottom line: If the anti-Trump coalition is as virulent and unswayable as these numbers seem to indicate, then he will be toast in November. Trump needs all the Republican votes and he needs any Independent votes that he can possibly muster. If disillusioned Republicans either stay home or show up and vote for Biden, he’s gone. Trump may bluster about winning in a landslide but the numbers bear out the fragmentation in his own party.
Does IN have mail-in/early voting? haley’s numbers are alarming, for trump, but if a lot of those votes are before her book came out things might be different now. I’m not saying there isn’t a substantial anti-trump voting block out there but at least a portion of the voters who pulled the lever for haley might be less enthused about her now. Doesn’t make any difference I guess since she is not going to get the ‘pube nomination but some of that % might change drastically. Toward trump? don’t know-I assume anti-trump is and stays anti-trump and that might be a mistake.
Uh, Spike? What “book?” Nikki has, per her Wiki page, authored (or is credited as author of) three books but nothing has come out since 2022 (she has contributed forewords to several other books–per her Wiki page and Amazon listings).
I think you’re confusing Nikki with Kristi Noem.
As for mail-in/early voting, it does appear that Indiana allows for both.