Donald Trump has been warned that his numbers in South Carolina are “disastrous” after 40 per cent of voters chose to vote against him.
The former president defeated Nikki Haley 60 points to 40 in Saturday’s Republican primary, handing the former South Carolina governor a humiliating defeat in her home state.
Trump has swept every race so far, winning Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, and could be crowned as soon as March 12 if results continue in his favor.
But one in five Republican primary voters now say they won’t vote for him in November, polls show, enough to hand over the race to Joe Biden, who won Saturday’s Democratic primary hands down.
“These numbers are disastrous for Donald Trump,” Lawrence O’Donnell said on MSNBC when the results came in.
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell warned that the numbers behind Trump’s victory in South Carolina do not give him a path to the White House
The former president did not mention Nikki Haley by name in his victory speech in South Carolina as he looked ahead to the November general election.
Haley insisted she would remain in the race with more than 700 delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday, March 5, when 15 states and one territory will cast their votes.
‘It’s the reason I mentioned the big forgotten South Carolina number, which is that Joe Biden gets 96%, okay?
“That’s what you’re supposed to get, okay, and Donald Trump won’t come close to that.”
‘He’s going to leave that on the table, that it belongs to another candidate. All you need, all you need, is 5% of 30%. We’re talking about a splinter.
The former president said he had “never seen the Republican Party as united as it is now” while holding a victory rally in a Colombia hotel lounge on Saturday night.
“I just wish we could do it faster.”
It has been more than 50 years since a Republican presidential candidate clinched the Republican nomination without winning his home state.
But Haley insisted she had a long road ahead of her, telling her followers: “I know 40% is not 50%, but I also know that 40% is not a small group.”
“There are a large number of voters in our Republican primaries who say they want an alternative.”
Sixty percent of South Carolina primary voters identify as white evangelicals or born-again Christians, and Trump won three-quarters of their votes.
The average age of voters was higher than in any previous election in the state, and three-quarters of those without a college degree voted for Trump.
but a Bloomberg survey late last month found that a majority of voters in key swing states would not vote for the former president if he were convicted of any of the 90 felony charges he faces during his last term in office.
O’Donnell’s fellow panelists agreed that the numbers looked bad when the results came in, with Rachel Maddow saying it was “not a good look” and Stephanie Ruhle declaring Biden the “winner of the night.”
But the liberal media has a long history of underestimating the extent of Trump’s support, and his campaign warned of the same kind of complacency it showed before Hillary Clinton lost to him in 2016.
“This is going to be a referendum against Joe Biden and his policies,” a Trump adviser told Mediaite.
“As long as Trump can take advantage of voter disillusionment about the economy, out-of-control immigration and more foreign entanglements, those are issues that affect people of all backgrounds.”
Trump now has 110 delegates to attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 15, when the winner will be formally declared.
Liberal panel on MSNBC’s election night coverage agreed with O’Donnell’s analysis
His only remaining rival has 20 of the 1,215 needed to secure the nomination, but more than 700 are at stake on “Super Tuesday” on March 5, when 15 states and one territory will cast their votes.
However, Trump is already looking forward to November, when he insists that he will regain the White House he lost in 2020.
“For working Americans, November 5 will be our new Liberation Day,” he said yesterday in a speech to the conservative CPAC conference.
“But for the liars, cheats, con artists, censors and impostors who have taken over our government, it will be doomsday.”