Former President Donald Trump has effectively locked up the Republican presidential nomination after winning all but one Super Tuesday contest and his final opponent — former UN ambassador Nikki Haley — suspending her campaign. Even though he'll likely need her supporters to help him across the finish line in battleground states, Trump couldn't resist gloating on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday.
"Nikki Haley got TROUNCED last night, in record-setting fashion," the 45th president of the United States wrote. "Much of her money came from Radical Left Democrats, as did many of her voters."
"At this point, I hope she stays in the 'race' and fights it out until the end," he continued, writing that he "would further like to invite all of the Haley supporters to join the greatest movement in the history of our Nation."
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"BIDEN IS THE ENEMY, HE IS DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!" Trump said.
Trump's invitation to Haley's supporters may fall flat, given that he's dragged them in the recent past. ABC News reported that Trump has previously stated that her voters would be "permanently barred" from the MAGA movement, and many of her backers have indicated that they won't be hopping aboard the Trump train anytime soon. Exit polling from several Republican contests found that vast swaths of Haley voters were not planning on voting for Trump, with 78% of Haley's supporters in North Carolina, 69% in California and 68% in Virginia telling ABC that they wouldn't commit to voting for the eventual GOP nominee.
MSNBC interviewed one Haley supporter outside of a polling place in Virginia who had switched over to the former South Carolina governor's side after previously backing Trump. When asked why she switched candidates, the voter simply said "the man is a lunatic, and I think he's terrible for the country."
"He lies, he cheats, he bankrupted millions of businesses and people, and I don't see anything good about him," she said.
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On Super Tuesday — in which 15 states and territories all held their individual nominating contests, including delegate-rich states like California and Texas — Trump won almost every Republican primary and caucus. The only contest he lost was in Vermont, where Haley won the Green Mountain State's nine delegates. On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden swept every contest outside of American Samoa, where investor Jason Palmer got 51 votes (and six delegates) to Biden's 40 votes in the US territory's Democratic caucus.
Even though she suspended her campaign, Haley has 89 total GOP delegates heading into this summer's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While Trump is almost certainly guaranteed to lock up the 1,215 delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination, Haley's delegates could still theoretically push to nominate her at the convention if Trump is a convicted felon at the time of the convention. A significant portion of Republicans would not commit to backing Trump in the event he gets convicted in any of his four criminal trials: roughly a third of GOP voters in the battleground state of North Carolina told Reuters they wouldn't support Trump if he were a felon.
The former president getting a felony conviction prior to this summer's convention isn't out of the realm of possibility. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — who has indicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — will be the first prosecutor to try a former president when his trial begins on March 25. Even if Trump won in November, he would be unable to have his appointed attorney general dismiss the case or pardon himself, as the conviction is within the jurisdiction of the State of New York.
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