By Matt Kane | AMAC
https://amac.us/newsline/elections/president-trumps-historic-primary/
President Trump was already off to a historic start in the race by setting primary voting records in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Michigan prior to yesterday’s results. But his near perfect Super Tuesday performance elevated his historic primary to an even more legendary status, as those four states were joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Alaska, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia in setting record highs for primary votes.
Of course, this primary has been expounded on by figureheads with clear political biases on network television, making it difficult to truly understand what the results mean in terms of candidate strength. But the following chart, whose figures were retrieved from uselectionatlas.org, which show states where Trump has set primary records thus far compared to the previous record, objectively illustrate a truly historic performance for Trump as a non-incumbent candidate.
The chart does not mention the 98 percent of overall counties Trump has won, which demonstrates far reaching support beyond just densely populated areas. However, because it is Trump choreographing this historic run, it continues to be misconstrued by mainstream media and bitter primary opponents.
For example, no candidate in the history of the Iowa Caucuses ever won by greater than a 12 percent margin, or even came close to securing greater than 50 percent of the vote, a majority. But this year, in addition to winning all but one county (which he only lost by one single vote), Trump finished with 51 percent of the vote, and won by a nearly 30 percent margin.
Yet despite this historic performance, Ron DeSantis – who visited all of Iowa’s 99 counties alongside Governor Kim Reynolds only to finish in a very distant second – claimed if Ronald Reagan were running for a third time, he would have received 85-90 percent of the Iowa vote in an attempt to downplay Trump’s popularity. Beyond ignoring the above figures proving Trump’s dominance, the only somewhat available metric to test DeSantis’ claims would be the 1988 Republican primary, where Reagan’s Vice President, George H.W. Bush came in FOURTH place in Iowa, weakening his hypothetical theory.
Nikki Haley has been even more extreme in misconstruing data. Following each loss, Haley makes the claim that almost half (subtly conceding a minority) of REPUBLICANS prefer someone other than Trump. Yet she fails to ever mention the fact that her already low numbers are boosted by Democrat voters voting for her.
For example, following her blowout loss in New Hampshire, it was revealed that an estimated 70 percent of her votes came from non-Republicans. Likewise, in her home state of South Carolina, where theoretically she should be at her most popular, it is estimated that 19 percent of her voters identified as Democrats.
When removing non-Republican voters from Haley’s count and the overall figure in these states, Trump’s victory in New Hampshire shifts from 54%-43%, an 11 percent margin of victory, to a whopping 79%-19%, which is a 50 percent margin of victory. In South Carolina, the margin shifts from 60%-40%, 20 percent in favor of Trump, to 65%-35%, or 30 percent in his favor. Both adjusted figures much more accurately represent voter sentiment amongst actual Republican voters in these states and debunk Haley’s claims about a divided party.
Less surprising has been mainstream media’s attempts to diminish Trump’s increasing popularity. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell claimed South Carolina’s results were “disastrous for Donald Trump.” This is outright laughable considering he secured almost 150 THOUSAND more votes than the previous primary record in the state, while running against someone who previously served as its governor who benefitted from an influx of Democrat voters.
Across the political aisle on (allegedly) right wing networks like Fox News, network mainstays such as Karl Rove suggest results in certain states signal a divided Republican party. Rove also warns that Trump may struggle to win over voters, while also aligning himself with Haley by foregoing mention of the Democrat voter influx or Trump’s historic polling inroads with minority communities.
If one is not convinced by the above figures, there is one other reference point in history to draw on where a former president sought a non-consecutive term, which was President Grover Cleveland in 1892. Trump, just like Cleveland, was previously president, but is not currently an incumbent. That makes this a contested primary, where due to numerous candidates running, no given candidate will be able to secure the close to 100 percent vote total that true incumbents receive during a reelection primary while in office. And while all aspects of life have changed since this last occurred roughly 130 years ago, it is worth noting Cleveland received just two-thirds of his party’s delegates at the Democrat convention and still went on to winning the presidency. In contrast, as it stands today, Trump has secured 91 percent of delegates, a figure that is expected to increase.
Having different political opinions or candidate preferences is perfectly acceptable. But the comparing of apples to oranges, and the omission or cherry-picking of other data from all directions gives off the perception of coordinated bitterness as opposed to objective analysis when you consider all information mentioned here is widely available.
So in conclusion; the numbers, projections, and even a little bit of history all point to this being a historic display of dominance for President Trump. It is expected that by March 19th the latest, he will have surpassed the necessary 1,215 delegates to secure his third Republican nomination. While we will never know whether DeSantis was right about a potential Reagan 88’ performance, if his 85-90 percent baseline popularity figure is true, in terms of counties (98%), states (96%), and the all-important delegate count (91%), it seems Trump is well on his way to achieving that.
Matt Kane earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Stony Brook University. His work has been posted by President Trump, RealClearPolitics, and American Thinker. X/Twitter: @MattKaneUSA Truth Social @MattKane
