Donald Trump, who has had a string of victories in the race for the Republican nomination, intends to win the match against Nikki Haley on Tuesday during “Super Tuesday”.
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But these successes at the polls have also all revealed vulnerabilities in the former president which 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 tide 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 is to prevail against Democratic President Joe Biden in November.
In New Hampshire as in South Carolina, these voters largely preferred Nikki Haley, the last Republican in the running to stand in her way.
The fifty-year-old, former American ambassador to the UN under Donald Trump, cultivates an image of a more moderate candidate, promising to restore a certain “normality” among conservatives.
However, according to an exit poll last Saturday in South Carolina, 40% of his supporters indicated that they were opposed to the candidacy of Donald Trump.
“A huge wake-up call,” according to Alyssa Farah Griffin, former communications director for the former president, when he was at the White House.
“Someone who’s practically running as an incumbent president — Donald Trump — gets 60 percent of the vote and 40 percent are against him? “It’s not exactly a coronation,” she said during an exchange on CNN.
“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.
“40% 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.
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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 outgoing President Joe Biden is also very poorly perceived by independent voters.
“Trump is well positioned to win the election. He focuses on issues that clearly matter to voters — transparent government, fiscal responsibility, energy independence and jobs numbers,” Charlie Kolean, a Republican strategist, told AFP.
But Joe Biden’s campaign team 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 performance in the primaries, it is the billionaire’s serial indictments – and all the time he will have to spend in court in 2024 – that worries Keith Nahigian, former member of 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 takes away time could be detrimental” to one’s candidacy, analysis- he.
For Bill Kristol, a former Bush-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 probably end up with about 92 % 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.