When Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley ended her long-shot 2024 bid against Donald Trump on Wednesday, she explicitly called on the GOP front-runner to work “to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him.”
“At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away,” Haley said.
By not endorsing Donald Trump, at least for now, Haley left Biden an opening to her voters, and he immediately took it.
“Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Nikki Haley’s supporters,” Biden said in a statement. “I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign.”
While Biden admitted that he and Haley supporters had areas of disagreement, he emphasized their shared values.
“On the fundamental issues of preserving American democracy, on standing up for the rule of law, on treating each other with decency and dignity and respect, on preserving NATO and standing up to America’s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground,” Biden wrote.
For his part, Trump pounced on the opportunity Wednesday morning to reassert his reign as the pettiest human on the planet. In a Truth Social statement, he mocked Haley for getting “TROUNCED, in record setting fashion.” Haley’s money, he added, “came from RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS.”
“At this point, I hope she stays in the ‘race’ and fights it out until the end!” Trump wrote, before inviting “all of Haley supporters” to join his movement.
In essence, you’re a bunch of rotten, no-good losers, but please feel free to join us.
Let’s take a quick look at the places where Super Tuesday results suggest Trump is already shooting himself in the foot.
Haley handily won the highly educated Virginia suburbs of Northern Virginia, trouncing Trump (to borrow a phrase) by over 70% in Arlington County and the cities of Alexandria and Falls Church.
Haley also won the region’s largest jurisdiction in the region, Fairfax County, by 17 points, 57% to 40%. In 2016, the county’s anti-Trump vote share was comparable, with Trump’s fiercest critics, Sen. Marco Rubio and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, winning a combined 57.5% of the vote. In essence, Trump, now running as the de facto incumbent, has done nothing to chip away at that deficit and shore up his weaknesses in the region—and likely suburban America more broadly.
In North Carolina, Trump made a strong showing, winning 74% to Haley’s 23.3%. But it’s also a state he won by a hair over 1 percentage point in 2020, and he just told nearly a quarter of its Republican voters to screw off. Biden and Democrats will have the added benefit of running against MAGA extremist and Holocaust denier Mark Robinson, who won the GOP gubernatorial nomination Tuesday. North Carolina would be a Biden pick up, and Tar Heel activists, such as EMILY’s List vice president of communications Christina Reynolds, see an opportunity there.
Arizona’s presidential primary isn’t until March 19, but here’s what we do know: After the exit of independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the race for U.S. Senate will be a face-off between Democratic Rep. Rubin Gallego and MAGA extremist Kari Lake, who still hasn’t conceded that she lost her 2022 bid for governor. In that race, Lake famously told John McCain voters to “get the hell out” of a rally four days before she was narrowly defeated at the ballot box. Now, Lake is already gleefully echoing Trump, telling Haley voters their kind isn’t welcome in the MAGA coalition.
On Wednesday morning, Lake gloated about hearing reports that “Nimrata Haley” would suspend her campaign—invoking Haley’s given name as an apparent racial slur.
As anti-Trumper and Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell noted, “Looking forward to Kari Lake once again alienating McCain/Haley Republicans in Arizona and losing both her race and helping drag Trump down even further with suburban voters and costing him this crucial swing state.”
A lot of energy is already being put into reinforcing that Trump and MAGA Republicans don’t want any moderate, old-guard conservatives in their coalition. No time like the present.
