I work the polls in PA. It is a closed primary. We had a low turnout yesterday. There were virtually no competitive races for either party.
The Haley vote is significant and worrisome. Don’t kid yourself. In the primary in 2020 Trump was unopposed and got about 1,053,000 votes. This year, in the first election, where we have a chance to vote for Trump since he was robbed, he’s going to get around 835,000. Trump lost PA by about 80,000 votes in 2020. Furthermore, it still appears as if Republicans refuse to vote by mail. The mail in numbers look as blue as ever.
I don’t think the Haley voters come home. They’ll probably vote for Kennedy, or worse yet Biden. If Haley were on the ticket? You might get some of them.
I consider my precinct ‘Trump country’. Yesterday confirms what I’ve feared for awhile: there’s no enthusiasm for Trump. If there are any Trump signs at all up, they are tattered and faded 2020 versions which have been there for years. Virtually no new signs. One guy who does have the 2024 editions, remarked his wife (a Republican) is thinking of voting for Kennedy. She did not vote yesterday.
Trump might still win. We have to hope the enthusiasm for Biden in blue areas is even worse then the Trump enthusiasm. It’s possible, although I note Biden had around 975,000 votes yesterday; significantly more than Trump’s 835,000. Independents are not allowed to vote in PA primaries. They will help us close the gap, as they will skew towards Trump.
If I were Trump, I’d work on the minorities in blue areas, rather than rich, white Haley voters. I don’t expect a black guy from West Philly to vote Trump, but he might vote Cornell West, or stay home. Too many of these Haley people are unattainable, no matter what. They wear their Trump hatred on their sleeves as a badge of honor.
All in all, a discouraging result here in PA.
Thanks for the detailed report. Eyes on the ground in the polling spots, based on your experience, is very valuable.
I agree that the upper class Republicans, often referred to as the country club Republicans, don’t like Trump. In my opinion mainly for his crude behavior, and he may have permanently lost not only their votes, but their donations.
He’s tried to replace them with former Democrats, be they gay, union members, or minorities, but a lot of those voters are in big cities, and states that will end up blue, anyway.
His VP choice will be critical. He may not have even decided yet, because everything is so volatile, but make no mistake, whoever he choses will be based on who can bring him the most votes. And it looks like there’s potentially 150K Haley voters right there in PA alone.