Election

In the end, the lesson of Nikki Haley's run is that Donald Trump defeated every wing of the Republican Party along the way to becoming its champion. In 2016, he beat the avatar of Tea Party constitutional populism in Ted Cruz. In 2024, he bested the reformist culture war version of himself in Ron DeSantis, and then dispatched the post-George W. Bush-era form of suburbanite compassionate conservatism in Haley, who speaks in a combination of defense-industry jargon and Bible verses. He even brought the older era of Chamber of Commerce Federalist Society Reaganite to heel, with Mitch McConnell endorsing him today. Trump's dominance over the GOP is total. The problem Trump has, of course, is that he can't win just with that authoritative GOP support.

Donald Trump is cleaning up in the Republican primaries on Super Tuesday. The 45th president has secured victories in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Nikki Haley's sole victory is in Vermont. President Biden also bagged easy wins in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. The Democrats also held caucuses in American Samoa and Iowa on Tuesday. Biden won Iowa with 91 percent of the vote, but lost American Samoa to unknown businessman Jason Palmer.

Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump won overwhelming victories in Tuesday’s Michigan primary, but their undeniable success doesn’t answer the hard questions facing each candidate in the general election. They won’t get the answers next week on Super Tuesday, either, even though both candidates are expected to win easily. What are those questions, on which victory in November depends? Oddly, some are the same for Biden and Trump. Can they recapture the reluctant wings of their party, the factions that have refused to vote for them so far? Can they move beyond consolidating support within their parties to win over independent voters, who outnumber both Republicans and Democrats? Despite that similarity, there is a fundamental difference between the refusenik wings of each party.

Elvis has left the building. So has Trump, and he left victorious. The “primary show” will have a few encores, mainly on March 5 (Super Tuesday), when multiple states vote, but the outcome is certain. With his decisive win in South Carolina, Donald Trump effectively clinched the Republican nomination. He easily defeated his last opponent, Nikki Haley, in her home state. Trump’s victory there follows those in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Trump has carried every state. No one else has come close. Why did Trump win? For two reasons. First, the voters in these contests are the party’s activist base, and Trump fundamentally reshaped that base during his first run for president and his White House years.

Greenville, South Carolina I’ve now seen three versions of Donald Trump in the state where I grew up. In 2016, he was the impassioned underdog, battling against Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz in a state many in the national media assumed would decide against a New York limousine liberal and stop the Trump Train in its tracks. In 2020, he was the prideful, over-the-top champion of the conservative cause — he bellowed through a sweaty speech, calling out to the universal Republican endorsements in the audience, playing the hits to a stadium crowd mere weeks before the word "coronavirus" was known to the average American.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Having lingered a little too long at a Scottish outfitter’s booth learning about the art of falconry, I assumed I’d be relegated to the overflow arena of the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex, where Donald Trump was addressing attendees of the NRA’s Great American Outdoor Show last night. I was surprised to learn from a friendly security guard, however, that there were said to be some seats still available in the nosebleeds of the main arena. I tried my luck at the handiest entrance, and a kind man with a cane and his three companions all stood up and made way for me to sit in a prime seat.

Yesterday was a year’s worth of a rising wave that came crashing down on Democratic hopes for 2024. They had hoped Republicans, motivated in part by constant lawfare attacks, would nominate Donald Trump — only to tear their party apart during the summer as denial of election eligibility in key states made clear he had no path to victory. They had hoped that by carefully managing Joe Biden, with access even more locked down than during the height of the pandemic, would survive questions of age and infirmity. And they had assumed the special counsel's report, while sure to include some damning equivalence with Trump’s stacks of Mar-a-Lago memorabilia, would be a story for a news cycle, easily survived and ultimately unmemorable.

President Joe Biden surprised the American people Thursday night by delivering previously unscheduled remarks on his classified documents scandal — and promptly created an unmitigated PR disaster. Earlier in the day, the special counsel investigating Biden’s improper retention and storage of classified documents issued his report. Robert Hur found the president did mishandle documents, broke national security law and undermined national security by releasing classified information to his ghostwriter. However, perhaps even more damning, Hur declined to recommend charges against the president, asserting that he presents as a “well-meaning” elderly man with a poor memory.

How is Nikki Haley going to stage an upset in her home state’s Republican primary later this month? By appealing to a key conservative constituency: Saturday Night Live viewers. Haley appeared “live from New York” this evening in a cold open aping a Donald Trump town hall. (She even got to say the line!) Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

As another Trump presidency starts to look more likely, the incessant conversations about age are bubbling back up. Roundtable discussions about “cognitive capabilities” took a hiatus over the last few years in the mainstream press, as a slow-jogging, hair-sniffing, Joe Biden restored normalcy to the White House. Normalcy, for those who haven’t been paying attention, looks like said octogenarian falling up the stairs of Air Force One, falling asleep at COP26, forgetting the names of his own cabinet members and of course, being escorted around the White House lawn by the Easter Bunny.

Every two years, Chuck Schumer’s Senate Majority PAC and its allies come up with cunning ways to get Democrats over the finish line. The latest instance can be seen in Montana, where a group with virtually no online presence has already spent almost $5 million attacking the GOP’s preferred candidate, former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy.  Last Best Place PAC, formed last September, has spent almost the same amount as Democratic incumbent Jon Tester has in his reelection bid, according to AdImpact’s tracking. The Democrats’ pro-Tester and anti-Sheehy spending more than doubles the GOP’s spending so far.

Cockburn wondered last week what would happen to anti-MAGA voters after their chosen candidates dropped out of the race. Would they be able to return to the Trump fold? Though Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis have reignited their months-long feud after the Florida governor dropped out Sunday, it’s last woman standing Nikki Haley who has drawn the bulk of Trump’s ire since. Taking a page from Kari Lake’s “get the hell out” playbook, Trump decreed on Truth Social Wednesday night that Haley donors will be blacklisted from his campaign.  “Anyone that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them, and we will not accept them, because we Put America First, and ALWAYS WILL,” Trump posted.

The US primaries are over. Trump whacked Nikki Haley in New Hampshire; if she could win anywhere it was there, and she didn’t, so she’s done. Joe Biden didn’t even bother. The result? The most inadequate, boring primary season in living memory. North Korean elections are more unpredictable than this. For those of us who love politics, primaries are usually more interesting than the November general election. In the general, candidates run to the center; in the primary, they run to the edges, articulating a philosophy and galvanizing its constituency. You get contests of insider versus outsider (Clinton versus Obama, 2008); establishment versus radical (Clinton versus Sanders, 2016).