Then there are some in the media who, through muscle memory or overindulgence in Haley’s campaign rhetoric, present the nominating fight as one that follows the recent trajectory (see: 2008, 2012, 2016) of being uncertain until well into the election year. And of course, there are those anti-Trump augurs who sift through the exit polls to see what bad news for the Republican front-runner they can discern.
The reality is that the nominating contest is a contest only in the same sense that a football game is when one team is up by 50 points at halftime: You do technically have to let the clock run out. What’s more, the result of the Republican primaries to date are not indicative of a fervent Republican skepticism about Trump.
This election year offers an uncommon scenario. It is functionally a fight between two incumbents — and two broadly unpopular incumbents, at that. The Democratic nominating contest, featuring the literal incumbent president, has avoided any real challenge to the front-runner as primary dates have passed. A year ago, the Republican contest seemed as though it might be a real fight. But the combination of Trump’s Manhattan indictment — which galvanized Republican support for his candidacy — and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) remarkably unsuccessful challenge meant that Trump was the near-certain nominee before 2024 began.
Since last fall, in fact, the level of support President Biden and Trump have seen in 538’s national polling averages has been similar. At this point, each candidate is the preferred candidate of three-quarters of his party.
Biden and Trump are each doing worse than Trump was in early 2020, when he was often at or above 90 percent in primary polling. But it’s hard to see how Trump’s failure to match where he was four years ago is much more damaging to his candidacy than Biden’s failure to do so is to his.
Haley has repeatedly framed the non-Trump vote in nominating contests as a measure of hostility to Trump. That she has received more than 40 percent of the vote in New Hampshire and South Carolina, the argument goes, shows how robust the opposition is to Trump within his party. For the tea-leaf readers, this suggests a softness that might translate to apathy in November that hurts Trump’s chances.
Maybe. But much of that opposition comes from independents, not Republicans. In New Hampshire, for example, most of Haley’s support came from non-Republicans. In South Carolina — the state where she was once a popular governor — about 3 in 5 votes she received came from Republicans, according to exit polling.
Exit polling also shows that Trump now consistently gets more support from Republicans than he did until late in the 2016 cycle and about as much support from his party as Biden got from his after the Democratic vote rapidly consolidated around him in 2020.
This is mostly a measure of that consolidation, certainly. But it’s a reminder that even if Trump weren’t vacuuming up most Republican votes, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that they wouldn’t show up to vote for him in November as they did for him heavily in 2016. Perhaps those independents who came out for Haley in South Carolina won’t vote for Trump in November, but that does not mean that Biden will win the state. What’s more, part of the electorate in these contests — particularly New Hampshire, it’s safe to say — is made up of voters who are members of those groups eager to present the nomination as contested or an illustration of Trump’s weakness.
We might generally ask a related question: How often will Republican primary voters who aren’t simply trying to make Trump’s path forward difficult sit out November or vote for Biden? What’s more probable: that someone who prefers Haley to Trump politically will vote for Biden or that they’ll grumble and vote for Trump?
There are numerous case studies on this. Consider Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), one of the most vocal critics of Trump in the wake of 2020. He endorsed Trump over the weekend, framing November as a contest between Trump and Biden. Given that choice, he’s willing to hold his nose.
Just as these numbers don’t mean that Trump will necessarily lose in November, they also don’t mean he’ll win. A lot of Biden’s support is driven by hostility to Trump, as it was four years ago. The race remains uncertain and unsettled, with few solid precedents to consider.
One thing it seems safe to say, though, is that Trump sweeping Republican nominating contests to date is not a sign that he’s in significant trouble.