Donald Trump, who ran for president of the party for the third time in a row with great chances, won the Republican primary elections that took place on Saturday very easily in the states of Missouri, Idaho and Michigan. So the only thing Trump can worry about is some intra-party tensions in Michigan, which many say could hurt his campaign in the key battleground state. Reuters.
The former president won all thirteen Michigan regions, according to the party's announcement, and overall he won the state with a 98 percent support rate, which specifically means that he got 1,575 votes, while his only competitor, Nikki Haley, got 36 votes. At one caucus, they were so certain that Trump would win that they asked Haley's supporters to stand up to shorten the process, as only one person among 185 delegates stood.
But this does not please Trump completely, as internal fighting has been raging in the Republican Party in the state for months, after the head of the local organization, Cristina Karamo, was replaced early last January, and Pete Hoekstra, who was supported by Trump, was installed in her place. Karamo, on the other hand, still has supporters and organized a counter-march in Detroit for Saturday's rally in Grand Rapids. However, he was unable to keep it, because the court ruled in favor of his attackers this week.
His supporters are still holding nomination meetings, but the GOP is unlikely to recognize their results.
In addition to Michigan, Trump defeated Missouri and Idaho by convincing margins on Saturday, winning all delegates in both places. The former president has previously won Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, the Virgin Islands and South Carolina, so it seems likely that he will be the party's presidential nominee, if possible. Of course, this wasn't a real question before the primaries either, which is why it's interesting that Nikki Haley still isn't giving up.
This may be because Haley is calling for Trump to be convicted in one of his many cases before the November election and will not be able to run. It's also possible that he's planning for the long term — if Trump wins, he won't be able to run again multiple times, and if he loses, Republicans may believe someone new is needed to regain power. In any case, large sums of money are sure to be spent in interested states next Super Tuesday. We've written more about this here, and analyzed Donald Trump's dominance and his competition with Biden in this podcast.
