Photo: Ryan Collerd Agence France-Presse Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Saturday.
Frankie Taggart – Agence France-Presse in Washington
March 3, 2024
- United States
Donald Trump, who has had a string of victories in the race for the Republican nomination, intends to lose the match against Nikki Haley on Tuesday during Super Tuesday.
However, these successes at the polls have also all revealed vulnerabilities in the former president that could complicate his reconquest of the White House.
The tempestuous septuagenarian won in all his elections thanks to the support of his base of supporters, a sea of “Make America Great Again” red caps who are still very loyal.
But he has also often lost a considerable number of votes among moderate Republicans and independents, votes essential if he wants to win against Democratic President Joe Biden in November.< /p>
In New Hampshire as in South Carolina, these voters largely preferred Nikki Haley, the last Republican in the running to block her path.
The fifty-year-old, former American ambassador to the UN under Donald Trump, cultivates an image as a more moderate candidate, promising to restore a certain “normality” among conservatives.
According to an exit poll last Saturday in South Carolina, 40% of his supporters indicated they were opposed to Donald Trump's candidacy.
“A huge wake-up call,” according to Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former president's communications director when he was at the White House.
“Someone who practically runs as an incumbent president gets 60% of the vote and 40% are against him ? It’s not exactly a coronation,” she said during an exchange on CNN.
“Trump has a problem”
“Donald Trump has a problem, whether he wants to admit it or not,” Nikki Haley warned in a statement Tuesday after losing a new primary to the former leader in Michigan. Additionally, “40 percent of Republican voters want nothing to do with him and he is doing absolutely nothing to include them in his increasingly exclusive group,” she said.
Nikki Haley has every interest in criticizing her rival's electoral successes. The Trump camp brushes aside its arguments, pointing to polls according to which the outgoing president, Joe Biden, is also very poorly perceived by independent voters.
“Trump is well positioned to win the election. “He's focused on the issues that clearly matter to voters: transparent government, fiscal responsibility, energy independence and jobs numbers,” Republican strategist Charlie Kolean told AFP.
Legal troubles
Joe Biden's campaign team, however, is banking on the fact that the gap between the two candidates will narrow in the most contested states when Donald Trump, his flights of fancy, his escapades and his legal troubles will regain a central place in the daily lives of the people. voters.
More than his performances in the primaries, it is the serial indictments of the billionaire – and all the time he will have to spend in court in 2024 – which worries Keith Nahigian, former member of the Donald Trump's team.
“The most important thing in a campaign is time: time to raise money, to meet people, to travel, and anything that steals time could be detrimental » to his candidacy, he analyzes.
For Bill Kristol, a former Bush Sr.-era Republican official and known critic of Donald Trump, the math is simple: If the former president can win back two-thirds of Nikki Haley's supporters, he would likely end up with about 92 percent. support among Republicans — roughly his 2020 score.
“That was enough to elect Biden, narrowly,” he assured during an interview with The Bulwark. To say that there is no resistance within the Republican Party is far too pessimistic,” he insisted.