'Bad news for Trump' despite South Carolina primary win: analysts
February 25, 2024
Despite an overwhelming win by Donald Trump in Saturday's South Carolina Republican presidential primary, there are dark clouds on the horizon for him after former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) promised to continue her uphill campaign.
According to analysts from both Politico and the Wall Street Journal, the fact that Trump lost close to 40 percent of the vote is a red flag that he still has not convinced a substantial number of conservative voters to back his bid despite being an overwhelming favorite to be on the ballot in November.
Add to that, suggested the Wall Street Journal's Catherine Lucey, Haley's decision to stay the course gives her the opportunity to keep reminding some wavering voters why they don't want a return to the chaos that accompanies the former president.
According to Politico, there is "one big warning sign for Trump," with analysts pointing to the 40 percent that failed to fall in line with the Republican frontrunner.
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"That number itself isn’t a problem in a primary. But it includes some serious reasons for concern in a general election. Trump lost moderate and liberal voters to Haley by a wide margin, according to exit polls. And, according to AP VoteCast, a bit over 1 in 5 GOP primary voters said they would not vote for Trump in November if he was the party’s nominee," the report states.
"...the clearest illustration of this dynamic came in the city of Charleston, where Haley racked up more than 80 percent of the vote in some precincts," the report added.
Appearing on CNN on Sunday morning with host Victor Blackwell, who stated there was "bad news for Trump" in the results, the Journal's Lucey agreed that the former president has some work to do and it may be an impossible task.
"I think this is a really interesting thing to think about when you look to the general and if you assume that Trump is obviously the likely general election candidate for Republicans, Haley is picking up a lot of support still," she told the host.
"I think one area to look at in particular is her appeal to moderate and suburban women who, as we know, can be a key voting block in deciding a general election," she continued. "And what she's doing right now in South Carolina and what is going we continue to do in Super Tuesday states is reminding those voters of what they don't like about Donald."
"So that is a real issue for him going forward," she pointed out. "She's out there really sending a message to those people about his policies, about his rhetoric and that could create issues for him going forward."
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