Earlier this month, Trump secured victories in the Republican primaries across Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York. Despite these wins, media reports have suggested that Donald Trump is in real trouble because 13% of Republican primary voters backed Nikki Haley, who had dropped out of the race in March.
I wasn't particularly concerned. Does anyone believe that 13% of Republican voters will opt out of the November election simply because they're not fond of Trump? Furthermore, of those states, only Wisconsin is a battleground state. Even Wisconsin's results could be dismissed partially because of the state's open primary system, and past primaries revealed many of Haley's votes came from Democratic voters.
But the same can't be said for Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary. Pennsylvania is a key battleground state. And yes, Trump emerged victorious, but approximately 16.5% of voters supported Nikki Haley, amounting to around 156,000 votes. And unlike Wisconsin, Pennsylvania has a closed primary.
Despite this, I wouldn't put too much stock in the Haley vote. Let's face it: we've seen nastier primaries in the past that all ended in the same way: on election day, primary voters overwhelmingly vote for their party's nominee. So I don't buy into the notion that Trump has to worry about Haley supporters sitting out the election. If that were going to be a problem, we would have seen a few general election match-up polls reflect a significant contingent of Republican voters not supporting Trump in November.
It's not stopping Joe Biden from trying to appeal to Haley supporters, but those efforts aren't likely to work any better than when John McCain made a concerted effort to appeal to Hillary Clinton voters in 2008. Frankly, Biden should worry about the black, Hispanic, and young voters who have abandoned him first.
Related: How Worried Should Trump Be About 156,000 Voters Casting Ballots for Nikki Haley in Pennsylvania?
I hate to break it to the Trump haters, but Haley supporters aren't a problem for him. Just as Hillary Clinton supporters fell in line and voted for Obama in 2008 and Bernie Sanders supporters fell in line and voted for Hillary in 2016, Haley voters will do the same and support Trump in November. I even suspect that most of the protest votes against Biden for "uncommitted" in recent primaries will ultimately back him in November, as will the 7% of Democrat primary voters who supported Dean Phillips even though he dropped out last month. That's just how it works.
Though the counting is still in progress, it looks like fewer Republicans voted on Tuesday than Democrats. This would normally be a point of concern for Trump, but a look at past primaries in the state shows similar trends. In fact, in 2020, Joe Biden got more votes in his contested primary with Bernie Sanders than Trump did in his uncontested primary. In 2020, there were nearly 160,000 more Democratic primary voters than Republican primary voters. Currently, it looks like the Democrat primary advantage will be smaller this year once all the votes are counted. In fact, the advantage in 2024 looks to be much closer to what it was in 2016 — when Trump ultimately won the state in the general election. It may not be the best point of comparison, because 2016 was a contested primary on both sides. What might be a greater factor in the tightening of the margin between Democratic and Republican primary voters is that the Democrats' registration advantage in the state is down to just under 400,000 from over 600,000 four years earlier.
In the end, the polls show that Pennsylvania is competitive in November, essentially unaffected by a double-digit protest vote. The closing of the party registration gap appears to be a bigger problem for Joe Biden than the Haley vote is a problem for Donald Trump.
