Michigan Set to Deliver Trump Another Big Win Over Haley

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—Donald Trump appeared poised for an easy win in Michigan’s Republican presidential primary Tuesday, an outcome that would yield his fifth-straight victory in this year’s major nominating contests and deliver another blow to Nikki Haley’s underdog bid.

Trump’s dominance in the first four major contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina have given the former president an air of inevitability and knocked Haley, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, into also-ran status.

Once a rising star in the GOP before Trump came to dominate the party, Haley had a simple answer when asked in a Wall Street Journal interview the day before the primary why she is still campaigning when Trump appears unstoppable.

“I’m doing what I think is right,” she said. “I’m doing what I believe 70% of Americans want me to do.”

That number references polling showing 7 in 10 Americans want an option other than Trump versus President Biden in this year’s presidential election.

Haley has pledged to stay in the race through Super Tuesday on March 5, when 15 states hold contests. Trump could be positioned to gain the delegates needed to secure the nomination by a week or two after that.

Haley held two campaign events in Michigan on Sunday and Monday after losing to Trump Saturday in her home state by 20 percentage points. Trump last visited Michigan on Feb. 17 and was expected to remotely participate in local media interviews on Tuesday.

In a show of her determination, Haley’s campaign has outlined a grueling travel schedule in the coming days that will include stops in Colorado, Utah, Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts and Vermont.

Haley warned that the Republican Party will continue to see electoral failure if it follows Trump and that his selection as the GOP nominee will result in Biden’s re-election.

“You have to see the writing on the wall, you have to see the hole in the ship,” she said. “And if you don’t see the hole in the ship, we’re all going to go down.”

A Trump spokesman didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

Trump participated in a tele-rally Monday night with Michigan supporters and called into several radio shows Tuesday, criticizing Biden on immigration ahead of their twin visits to the Texas border on Thursday.

“Our country is under invasion,” Trump told a Detroit radio station, vowing to quickly lock the down border if elected. Asked about Haley—a topic Trump’s campaign is trying to ignore—he pointed to polling showing him beating Biden in some states. “She’s not getting any traction,” he said. “It’s wonderful to say you’re going to run, but she hasn’t won anything.”

Haley pledged earlier in the campaign to endorse the party’s eventual nominee, but now refuses to reaffirm that commitment when asked about Trump. “What I will tell you is that I have serious concerns about Donald Trump. I have more serious concerns about Joe Biden,” she said, adding that she doesn’t want either to win.

She pointed to the 91 criminal charges Trump faces for matters including his handling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“This may be his survival mode to pay his legal fees and get out of some sort of legal peril, but this is like suicide for our country,” she said. “We’ve got to realize that if we don’t have someone who can win a general election, all we are doing is caving to the socialist left.”

Haley, who once had a good working relationship with Trump, said she wasn’t sure whether that would ever be possible again, given the recent animosity.

“It’s not personal for me,” she said. “It’s not something I think about.”

Haley has stressed in her campaign appearances that even as essentially a Republican incumbent, Trump has failed to secure roughly 40% of the vote in some of the early state contests and that suggests he could struggle to win in November.

“He’s not going to get the 40% by calling them names,” she said Sunday evening in Troy, Mich. “He’s not going to get the 40% if he is not willing to change and do something that acknowledges the 40%. And why should the 40% have to cave to him?”

Roughly a month after she applied for Secret Service protection because of increasing threats she has received as Trump’s last major opponent for nomination, Haley has yet to be granted that request.

“We’ve got to just go forward, so I don’t allow myself to think about it,” she said when asked whether she feels safe on the campaign trail.

In her speech after losing in South Carolina, Haley sounded at times like she was trying to carve out a third path between Trump and Biden, both of whom she criticized repeatedly. While meeting with a large group of reporters before a rally she held in Grand Rapids, Haley again rejected the notion that she might contemplate a third-party presidential bid.

“I have not spoken with anyone about anything other than running as a Republican,” she said. “I’m running in a Republican primary and I’m going to continue running in a Republican primary.”

In Michigan, Trump led Haley by 57 percentage points in FiveThirtyEight’s average of state polls. The state’s GOP was long a bastion of traditional conservatism (it is the birthplace of Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, a Trump critic), but in the Trump era it has moved in a more populist direction and been embroiled with infighting.

At stake in Tuesday’s GOP primary are 16 delegates, which will be awarded proportionally. Another 39 delegates are supposed to be awarded at a Saturday convention, but because the state party is in the middle of a tense leadership fight there are dueling conventions scheduled in different parts of the state.

Most polls in Michigan close Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET, except for a handful of counties in the Upper Peninsula where they close at 9 p.m. ET.

Jerry Kregel, a 60-year-old owner of a Christian publishing company who lives in suburban Grand Rapids, attended Haley’s event here and said he planned to vote for her Tuesday.

“I appreciate what she stands for and what she stands against,” he said. “The alternative is a horrendous option.”

Kregel described Trump as self-centered and bad for the nation’s reputation around the globe.

“He has put so much focus on himself that it’s detrimental to the country,” he said. “He has done so much to divide the country and damage unity.”

Tim Cook, a 62-year-old computer consultant from suburban Grand Rapids, said outside a polling place Tuesday that he voted for Trump.

“Ever since he left office, everything has gone to crud,” he said. “If he gets back in office, he will fix the economy and the border and hopefully some of this Middle East stuff.”

Cook said it was time for Haley to exit from the race. “She’s burning resources for the party,” he said.

Write to John McCormick at [email protected] and Alex Leary at [email protected]