By EFE
Feb 27, 2024, 9:41 PM EST
Former President Donald Trump won the Michigan Republican primary by a wide margin over rival Nikki Haley.
According to the projections of several American media such as CNN or NBC, the former president fulfilled the forecasts and arrives even stronger for one of the key dates of the presidential race, ‘Super Tuesday’, which will be celebrated next day the 5th.
Even so, the former governor of South Carolina stated in an interview with CNN, minutes after the polls closed, that she is not withdrawing from the race and that she will “absolutely” participate in ‘Super Tuesday’ since she has “a country to save.” .
The official counting of the votes has already begun and, with 15% counted, Trump has more than 64.6% of the votes and Haley 31.2%.
Little representation
In numerical terms, today’s primaries have little representation. And since the date of the state’s primary elections violates Republican party rules, to avoid a penalty, Michigan Republicans will award only 16 of their 55 delegates based on today’s results.
The remaining delegates will be assigned at the party’s state convention on March 2, one more peculiarity of the complex and lengthy primary calendar in the United States.
The former governor of South Carolina is Trump’s only remaining rival in the primaries and with today she scored a new defeat after losing the primaries in her state, South Carolina, last Saturday.
The Republican candidate then obtained 40% of the votes, a respectable figure that has allowed her to justify her stay in the Republican primaries.
However, he arrives with few possibilities on ‘Super Tuesday’, a day in which fifteen states are called to vote, including Texas and California.
Good participation
Michigan polling stations opened their doors at 7:00 a.m. local time (12:00 GMT) to celebrate the Republican and Democratic primaries, and were open until 8:00 p.m. (01:00 GMT on Wednesday).
The Secretary of State (highest electoral authority) of Michigan, Jocelyn Benson, noted on Monday that more than a million people had already cast their votes through the mail or in early voting.
With the results from Michigan still to be added, Trump has 110 delegates of the 1,215 he needs to add in order to be mathematically named the Republican candidate, something that will happen at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee that will be held from July 15 to 18.
Even so, everything seems to indicate that nothing can stop the former president, not even all the pending cases he has with the justice system, including four criminal trials for crimes such as the attempt to invalidate the elections, bribery, the retention of classified documents or the his participation in the assault on the Capitol.
If everything goes as before and Republican supporters continue to support him, on November 5 he will face President Joe Biden, the foreseeable Democratic candidate, at the polls.
Keep reading:
- Haley beat Trump among South Carolina independents; the republicans turned their backs on him
- Nikki Haley will not abandon the primaries despite defeat in South Carolina: “I am a woman of my word”
- Donald Trump celebrated Nikki Haley’s defeat in South Carolina: “We have a lot of work ahead of us”