And how many who prefer something else left the party?
“The GOP Wants Pure, Uncut Trumpism as Haley’s Path Forward Narrows,” declares the headline on Molly Ball’s article in today’s Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, over at Politico, Sam Stein and Natalie Allison warn, “Donald Trump has a problem no matter what happens in New Hampshire on Tuesday night: There’s a whole swath of the Republican electorate and a good chunk of independents who appear firmly committed to not voting for him in November if he becomes the nominee.”
There’s always been a chunk of the Republican Party whose views ranged anywhere from frustrated but barely supportive of Trump to vehemently opposed to him. Trump’s 2016 primary victory is remembered as this romp, but Trump won less than 45 percent of all of the total votes cast in that primary season. The problem for anyone not named Trump was that the other 55 percent or so was split among 14 other candidates.
In the 2016 exit poll, 88 percent of self-identified Republicans voted for Trump, but 8 percent voted for Hillary Clinton, and 4 percent voted for another candidate or didn’t answer. During the Trump presidency, lots of once-Republican voters who couldn’t stand Trump left the GOP, and certain independents and previous registered Democrats — usually blue-collar whites — joined the party. But even four years later, 94 percent of self-identified Republicans voted for Trump but 6 percent voted for Joe Biden. A lot of people who used to be Republicans are now independents and Democrats; that, along with the cold weather and a seemingly uncompetitive primary, is why turnout in the Iowa GOP caucus declined from around 187,000 in 2016 to around 108,000 this month.
Still, Trump won the Iowa caucuses by a historic margin, with 51 percent of the vote. But that means about 49 percent wanted something else. A headline declaring “The GOP Wants Pure, Uncut Trumpism” covers part of the story, not the whole story. Trump, in all likelihood, will win tonight, and he’ll probably win a solid majority — 51 to 60 percent of the vote, with Nikki Haley well behind. But that still leaves anywhere from 49 to 40 percent of Republican presidential primary voters wanting something else.
At this point, Trump is likely to win every contest from now until the convention. But the MAGA fanbase, by itself, is not going to be enough to win statewide elections in most places — otherwise, we would be talking about Georgia senator Herschel Walker, Arizona senator Blake Masters, Arizona governor Kari Lake, Pennsylvania governor Doug Mastriano, and Maryland governor Dan Cox. There is a pro-Trump half, or majority, in the GOP. But there is an anti-Trump, or Trump-exhausted, minority in the GOP. And a big question for the Trump campaign in the general election is whether that anti-Trump or Trump-exhausted minority in the GOP comes around and decides to vote for Trump, chooses to vote for four more years of Biden, votes for some other candidate, or stays home.