SCOTUS and Haley’s victory—No surprises!
It comes as no surprise that the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Trump would remain on the ballot in Colorado and that Nikki Haley won the GOP primary in Washington, D.C. In the former news story, the Supreme Court voted unanimously (there were no dissents) in an unsigned decision and handed the former president a victory in his bid to return to the White House.
Haley’s victory in D.C., her first primary win, keeps Trump from his continuing sweep of the GOP primaries, giving her 19 delegates. Olivia Perez-Cubas, Haley’s spokesperson, said “It’s not surprising that Republicans closest to Washington dysfunction are rejecting Donald Trump and all his chaos.” She added that Haley is the first woman to win a Republican primary in history.
A statement issued by Trump’s campaign downplayed the victory, congratulating her sarcastically as being “Queen of the Swamp by the lobbyists and D.C. insiders that want to protect the failed status quo.”
The Court’s decision on Colorado assured that Congress and not the states have the final word on how the 14th Amendment impacts federal office contenders. Several minutes after the ruling, Trump hailed the decision on his social media site, writing in capital letters, “Big win for America!!!”
There was a time when such developments were critical to a presidential race on the eve of Super Tuesday, but there is no real contest in either party with President Biden, only faced with the “uncommitted” challenge and Trump on the verge of sealing the primary on Tuesday.
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Voters and advocacy groups had filed dozens of challenges to Trump’s ballot eligibility in states across the country, claiming his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack triggered his disqualification.
The high court instead sided with Trump by ruling a singular state has no unilateral authority to enforce the 14th Amendment to disqualify federal candidates.
“Former President Trump challenges that decision on several grounds. Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse,” reads the unsigned opinion from the court.
Haley’s Sunday victory at least temporarily halts Donald Trump’s sweep of the GOP voting contests, although the former president is bound to pick up several hundred more delegates in this week’s Super Tuesday races.
In the video player above: Nikki Haley speaks one-on-one about her plans beyond Super Tuesday
Despite her early losses, Haley has said she would remain in the race at least through those contests, although she has declined to name any primary she felt confident she would win. Following her loss in her home state of South Carolina, Haley remained adamant that voters in subsequent states deserved an alternative to Trump despite his dominance thus far in the campaign.
Washington is one of the most heavily Democratic jurisdictions in the nation, with only about 23,000 registered Republicans in the city. Democrat Joe Biden won the district in the 2020 general election with 92% of the vote.
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Haley held a rally in the nation’s capital on Friday before heading back to North Carolina and a series of states holding Super Tuesday primaries. She joked with more than 100 supporters inside a hotel ballroom, “Who says there’s no Republicans in D.C., come on.”
“We’re trying to make sure that we touch every hand that we can and speak to every person,” Haley said.
As she gave her standard campaign speech, criticizing Trump for running up federal deficit, one rallygoer bellowed, “He cannot win a general election. It’s madness.” That prompted agreement from Haley, who argues that she can deny Biden a second term but Trump can’t.
While campaigning as an avowed conservative, Haley has tended to perform better among more moderate and independent-leaning voters.
Four in 10 Haley supporters in South Carolina’s GOP primary were self-described moderates, compared with 15% for Trump, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 2,400 voters taking part in the Republican primary in South Carolina, conducted for AP by NORC at the University of Chicago. On the other hand, 8 in 10 Trump supporters identified as conservatives, compared to about half of Haley’s backers.
Trump won an uncontested D.C. primary during his 2020 reelection bid but placed a distant third four years earlier behind Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Rubio’s win was one of only three in his unsuccessful 2016 bid. Other more centrist Republicans, including Mitt Romney and John McCain, won the city’s primaries in 2012 and 2008 on their way to winning the GOP nomination.
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