Posted on 02/26/2024 7:42:01 PM PST by DoodleBob
I’ve been taking the under on Nikki Haley for several weeks now and I’ve been wrong every time. So I looked under the hood on the South Carolina results and what I see is a signal that Trump is weaker than he looks.
Let’s start with the exit polls.
Haley kept it close: independent voters made up 22 percent of the electorate and she won them 62-37. South Carolina is an open primary, so this was a case of independents showing up to vote against Trump in a meaningless contest. That’s bad news for him.
Among people who thought the economy was either “good” (Haley +73) or “not so good” (Haley +1) Haley fought Trump to better than a draw.
This matters because Biden’s theory of the case is that the economy is good and people are going to recognize that. If Biden can even get voters to “ehhh, the economy is not so good,” suddenly voters are much less receptive to Trump.
Haley beat Trump by +9 with voters with a college degree. That’s expected, but still a point of weakness.
Not expected: Among married Republicans Trump was only +3. In recent elections, married voters have been a huge area of strength for Republicans—Trump was +7 among marrieds in 2020. South Carolina shows us that half of a core Republican bloc is turning out to vote against Trump even when his opponent has no chance of winning. Not great for him.
But it keeps getting worse: Nearly a third of the voters said that Trump isn’t fit to serve as president and Haley won them by Saddam Hussein numbers.
Last data point, which is something I’ve been fixated on since I did The Focus Group a couple weeks ago: Among voters who believe that Trump lost in 2020, his numbers are ghastly.
Important to note: 36 percent of the electorate said that yes, Biden won fair and square. And with those people, Haley was +64.1
I am growing convinced that forcing Trump to claim that he actually won in 2020—and belaboring that point over and over and over again—is a key to victory in 2024. When people see Trump lying about something they know isn’t true, it pits him against them, makes the relationship between Trump and the voter adversarial. The voters say, “Wait a minute, this guy is trying to scam me.”
And Trump is trapped because he’s so committed to the Big Lie that he can’t back down from it now.
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Side note: Long time readers know that I don’t do hopeium here. I might be the most fatalistic guy at The Bulwark. But I’m realistic, too, and the numbers here demonstrate very clearly that Trump has a couple of giant soft spots that can be exploited with voters.
If you want measured analysis—not cheerleading, but not doomscrolling either—then you should be with us this election. We don’t play both-sides games. We don’t platform bad actors. We see the world clearly and we fight for liberal democracy. That’s the job.
Come ride with us.
If everyone who voted for Haley was counted up and those who voted for Biden were added to the number, then throw in Kennedy and all those who got votes in either party, that would not add up to the number of votes that Trump got. And Trumps vote gathering is greater than anyone else who had a contested vote ever. So I think Trump is just fine in South Carolina.
Oh, the never-Trumpers are posting the same crap everywhere. Streiff at Red-state published the exact type of article yesterday.
I suspect the Never-trumpers coordinated promoting that narrative.
“Trump may not be the answer. There may be no answer, and things may go to Hell under him.”
Maybe not, but he’ll fight back harder than anyone else.
Yeah, and Mitt Romney is the only person who can beat Barack Obama.
100%.
And he will do it, I hope, with determined, aggressive malice towards all those people stand for.
I would like to see him bring in General Flynn to run the NSA.
And Kash Patel to run the DOJ.
Absolutely. They have their marching orders.
He sounds like a Ukraine is winning type of guy.
LOL, these people, I swear are pathetic.
Johnny Last, tell me about South Carolina’s primary in 2008? Obama 51, Clinton 23 and Edwards 17%. Who won the nomination and then the election? Trump got more in 2024 than Obama in 2008.
It’s over. Give up.
Spreading some pretty thick manure.
Super Tuesday results are going to hit bitch Haley like a fiat to the face. I shall enjoy the spectacle.
Good post on Obama 2008.
Another poster here in another thread had the same dumb line as the article.
I suggested that if the Republicans wanted to appeal to disaffected voters they should run all the primaries and nominate the candidate who lost the most of them.
Lol.
Trump won my NH town in 2016 and 2020.
In the 2024 primary, he won the town with 1150 votes - but Haley had 1008. I know a lot of those Republican Haley voters - and they are never, never, never going to vote for Trump in the Fall.
Trump was elected in 2016 by 60,000 Democrats in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. He needs Democrats and Independents - lots of them - to vote for him to overcome GOP defections.
I want Haley to stay in until Super Tuesday just to see the Texas results.
The latest polling gives President Trump a seventy percentage point lead.
This is an open primary so it is unlikely that number sticks, but even a sixty percentage point lead in a big state like Texas is totally mind blowing.
Who does this guy consider to be “we” and “us”? Not republicans certainly.
And Jeb! has an insurmountable lead and a $100 million war chest..... Please clap!
Think of it this way.
You are off to go to a job interview.
Do you want to be focusing on the pros and cons of your prospective employer as you walk into the interview room?
You do not.
You are there to get the offer.
Once you get the offer then you can make the decision.
Primary season is about getting the offer/nomination.
President Trump is brilliantly accomplishing that task.
After he has the nomination then we can all debate the finer points of the “job”/the election.
Agree!
Nobody wants the carpetbagging Hindu supremacist Nimrata Haley.
Hey Bulwark! Who ordered the counting to be simultaneously stopped in the swing states at 10 PM? Election not stolen, my as@
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