Former President Donald Trump, Republican favorite in the November presidential elections, continues to score points in the race. Despite the vast judicial offensive he faces – four criminal proceedings for which he is accused of 91 charges in total – Trump has won this Saturday the 39 delegates at stake at a Republican convention in Michigan, a state where the party has split into rival factions while the former president ensures control of the formation. Trump has also taken the 51 delegates from the Missouri caucuses and the 32 from the Idaho caucuses. With this, he adds the 122 that were at stake this Saturday, and he already has 244, while his rival, Nikki Haley, remains stuck at 24.
Trump’s landslide victory therefore appears to silence the political leadership battle in Michigan, with disputes over where the convention would be held and who would be in charge. Trump already easily defeated Nikki Haley in the Republican primary in that state last Tuesday, securing 12 of the 16 delegates at stake.
Michigan is also key in the final result of November, one of the six hinge or swing states – in all of them Trump has an advantage over his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, according to the latest polls -, which is why some factions of the party feared that internal dissension would harm his campaign and take away votes that might be crucial in November.
In Michigan, Trump defeated Haley in all 13 districts that participated in the nominating caucuses, according to the state Republican Party. In total, Trump won with nearly 1,575 votes to just 36 for Haley. Pete Hoekstra, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, called it an “overwhelming and dominant victory.” For this election cycle, Michigan Republicans devised a hybrid nomination system, divided between primaries and caucuses, hence the two days of voting.
In Idaho, Trump won 84.9%, compared to only 13.2% for Haley, so he gets the 32 delegates at stake. In Missouri, voting was indirect through caucuses. Trump has taken 100% of the 924 representatives who will formally meet at a state convention on May 4 and will then grant Trump the 51 delegates at stake for the national convention.
With his victories in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, the Virgin Islands, South Carolina and now Michigan, Missouri and Idaho, Trump is by far the favorite in the race, and Haley is holding on thanks to the support of donors eager for an alternative to the former president .
His clear advantage over Haley, the last Republican candidate in the running in a primary that began very crowded, brings him one step closer to his party’s nomination for the White House, which might be imminent, even before the theoretical coronation at the convention. national, which will be held in July in Milwaukee. Once inaugurated, not even the judicial setbacks he faces—or even the disqualification proceedings initiated by three states for his role in the assault on the Capitol, pending resolution—might prevent him from running for office in a repeat of his struggle for 2020 with Biden.
Trump’s party will also compete in the presidential primaries this Sunday in Washington DC, while on Monday it will be the turn of the caucuses in North Dakota. The two parties in contention, the Republican and the Democrat, go to the polls on Tuesday on the election day par excellence of the campaign, the so-called Super Tuesday, with voting of different types (primaries and caucuses) in 15 states and one territory. Trump has dedicated Saturday to various rallies in North Carolina, where he has also campaigned Haley, and Virginia.
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