He’s losing a troubling number of Republicans
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It’s Wednesday, so Donald “88 Counts” Trump is not in court. He is free to golf and complain his criminal trial means he’s unable to campaign for president.
Tuesday featured three additional presidential primaries in Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia. Politico’s lede: “Donald Trump showed weakness in the suburbs in Tuesday’s primaries, while Joe Biden’s problem with the protest vote appeared to fade.”
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Zombie Nikki is still a problem for Trump:
A week after Nikki Haley earned 22 percent of the vote in Indiana’s open GOP primary, the widespread expectation was that different rules in the states voting on Tuesday would take a huge chunk out of support for her zombie presidential candidacy.
That didn’t exactly happen. Even though Haley likely won’t end up matching her Indiana total in Maryland, Nebraska or West Virginia, there are still some warning signs for Trump in the results.
Unlike Indiana, where voters can pick any primary ballot they’d like, the GOP primary was open only to registered Republicans in Maryland and Nebraska, and registered Republicans and independents in West Virginia.
Despite its semi-open primary, West Virginia was the Trumpiest of the three states: The former president captured 88 percent of the vote there. But there were significant pockets of Trump resistance among Republicans in Maryland and Nebraska.
Bad news for Biden Trump
As for Joe Biden, another caveat to the Democratic fretting over the polls. Politico notes:
It’s been a paradox for Democrats fretting about Biden’s standing in the polls: Republicans are more likely to say they’ll vote for Trump in general-election polling than Democrats are for Biden, but there are more protest votes in the primaries against Trump.
That continued Tuesday in Maryland and Nebraska, where Biden outran Trump significantly by percentage. In Nebraska, Biden was breaking 90 percent of the vote against Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), even as Trump was stuck in the low 80s against Haley. And in Maryland, the “uncommitted” ballot line was poised to earn about 10 percent of the vote, with the greatest concentrations in the Republican counties of far Western Maryland.
There was still some “protest” vote for Biden in West Virginia, “with Jason Palmer, the surprising winner of the March caucuses in American Samoa, drawing more than 10 percent of the vote.” Ho-kay.
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