More evidence that former President Trump could be a weakened general election candidate surfaced Tuesday in the results of Republican primaries he won — generally unopposed.
In primary elections in Ohio and other states, a sizable number of GOP voters still cast ballots for former rivals to the ex-president.
That’s potentially a big problem for Trump, because it suggests not all GOP primary voters are warming to him.
“I think it absolutely raises questions about his strength as a general election candidate,” said Kirk Adams, who served as chief of staff to former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R).
“He certainly has the wind at his back on a couple I think very important issues: One is border security, and the other is inflation,” he continued. “But those voters that voted for Nikki Haley in those state primaries were obviously not moved by that.”
A handful of states cast ballots Tuesday in the presidential primaries, including Ohio, Florida and Arizona. Trump won Ohio and Florida by roughly fourth-fifths of the vote, but former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley notched around 14 percent in each.
Meanwhile in Arizona, Trump received 78 percent of the vote, while Haley received close to 19 percent. The South Carolina Republican notably received even more support — about 21 percent of the vote — in the key counties of Maricopa and Pima.
Republican strategist and vocal Trump critic Mike Madrid noted that some data around the Haley vote is harder to parse out given that some of those primaries were not closed.
In Ohio, for example, the state’s partially open primaries mean that a voter can cast a ballot in either party’s contest, though those who cast ballots in the opposing party’s contest essentially change their registration to that party.
Still, Madrid likened the primary results to a “five-alarm fire.”
“These are very, very ominous signs for a campaign heading into a general election,” he said. “Is it fixable? Sure, it is fixable; a lot of that vote’s gonna go back. But if he loses 10 percent of the Republican base, it’s very hard, even with a third-party candidate, to see how he pulls this thing off.”
The Trump campaign largely brushed off the primary results, arguing he was unifying different voters together.
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More evidence that former President Trump could be a weakened general election candidate surfaced in the results of Republican primaries, which he won — generally unopposed. https://t.co/paLRIvRk9w
— The Hill (@thehill) March 21, 2024
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