Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and former Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) continue to pull a sizable amount of primary votes, even after exiting the 2024 race.
The latest results from Tuesday night’s primaries in Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio, and Florida show troubling patterns that have the potential to hobble both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump ahead of their November rematch.
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In battleground state Ohio, Haley garnered 15% of the vote compared to Trump’s 79% with more than 80% of votes counted nearly two weeks after she dropped out of the presidential race.
Preliminary exit polls show that 22% of Ohio voters said they would be dissatisfied if Trump were the GOP nominee, even though he is the presumptive nominee. The polls also showed that 19% said they wouldn’t support Trump in November. Of that 19%, 11% preferred Biden, and 8% said they wouldn’t vote for either candidate.
Among Haley backers in the Buckeye State, 89% said they would be dissatisfied with Trump as the nominee, and 8 in 10 said they wouldn’t vote for him in November. Almost 50% of Haley’s supporters who wouldn’t vote for Trump preferred Biden, and 32% said they wouldn’t vote for either candidate. Only 19% of Haley’s voters said they would cast a ballot for Trump in November.
If enough Haley supporters throw their weight for Biden it could cost Trump the state, which he won in 2020 by 8 percentage points over Biden.
Phillips, who also exited the race around the same time Haley did, won 13% of the vote in Ohio and is on track to pick up delegates for the first time in the primary season.
The Ohio results were Phillips’s second-best primary performance after New Hampshire’s primary in January, when he won 19.6% of the vote but still lost to Biden, who wasn’t on the ballot. Supporters of Biden staged a successful write-in campaign in the Granite State.
In Florida, Trump’s home state, Haley again pulled in double-digit results. The former South Carolina governor won nearly 14% to Trump’s 81% with almost all the votes counted. Haley even beat out Sunshine State Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who came in third place at roughly 4%.
Trump will likely win his home state in November against Biden, but Haley’s share of votes speaks to the ongoing fatigue Trump still has with some GOP voters.
In Kansas, Trump lost 25% of the vote to Haley (16%) and the “None of the Names Shown” option (5%) with three-fourths of votes counted. Another 3% voted for DeSantis.
Meanwhile, Biden lost more than 15% of the vote in Kansas to “None of the Names Shown” (10%), author Marianne Williamson (3.4%), Phillips (1.2%) and Jason Palmer (1.1%).
In Illinois, Trump lost about 20% of the vote to Haley and other former challengers, whereas Biden fared better in the blue state shedding about 9% support to other candidates, with about two-thirds of the vote in.
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Biden has battled with a rising “uncommitted” vote movement stemming from anger with the Israel-Hamas war. Arab, Muslim, and younger voters have pushed for a permanent ceasefire in the Middle East conflict and have organized anti-Biden primary votes to display their fury at Biden’s handling of the war.
It is unclear how many “uncommitted” voters will either sit out the November election or vote for Trump to spite Biden, but in an election that will likely come down to six or seven battleground states, Biden cannot afford to lose votes.
