Trump wins Pennsylvania primary, but remains haunted by Haley

Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden scored overwhelming primary victories in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, facing opponents who had long since dropped out of the race.

Trump appeared to take 83% of the vote against Nikki Haley, his former rival in the Republican primaries. Still, Haley won the votes of more than 155,000 Pennsylvanians across the state that is considered essential to victory in November, although she ended her campaign more than a month ago.

Haley, the former South Carolina governor, did not endorse Trump in exiting the race, and the Pennsylvania vote reflected his continuing difficulties in wooing her supporters and in fully winning over the Republican electorate. In GOP primaries earlier this month in Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York, Haley won small but significant protest votes – capturing at least 10% of the vote in each of the four states.

Trump has shown little interest in winning Haley’s endorsement and has made few attempts to reach out to her supporters. It remains unclear whether the former president’s decision to bypass any reconciliation with Haley will matter as November approaches.

“The risk for Donald Trump would be that people would not vote because they’re not happy,” Irma Fralic, a cochair of Women for Nikki and a Pennsylvania resident, told The New York Times last month. “I think I speak for many people in that we’re extremely frustrated that we have Biden and Trump to pick from.”

On the Democratic side, Biden, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, took nearly 95% of the vote. Rep. Dean Phillips, who was on the ballot but dropped out of the race last month, got about 5% of the vote.

The results suggest that Biden is on surer footing with the Democratic base in Pennsylvania compared with other battleground states, such as Michigan, where the president has faced significant numbers of protest votes focusing on his handling of the war in the Gaza Strip.