Pennsylvania held its primary elections on Tuesday. In this battleground state, the Democrats received attention for primarying some — but not all — of the state’s far-bizarro left-wing representatives in Congress.
However, the GOP primary contains the bigger story.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley won 157,000 in the state’s presidential primary… almost two months after suspending her campaign.
By comparison, President Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by about 80,000 votes in 2020, barely half the number of Haley’s votes. In Michigan’s Democratic primary this year, “uncommitted” won only 12 percent of the vote, compared to Haley’s 17 percent in Pennsylvania.
Some allies of former President Donald Trump have blamed Haley’s shockingly high numbers on committed Democrats casting tactical votes in the GOP’s primary.
However, Pennsylvania hosts closed primaries. To participate in a primary, each voter must register with his or her preferred party more than two weeks before the election. Plus, Pennsylvania liberals had every incentive to vote in the state’s Democratic primaries, a more competitive set of elections happening on the same day.
Granted, Haley probably won of these votes by mail before ending her campaign, and she stands no chance of becoming president. Not only has she dropped out, but she also won only two primary races. She won 43 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, and she saw her momentum slow after that. She even lost her home state.
Still, Haley’s loyalists may cost Trump the election in this closely divided state of more than 10 million people.
A larger proportion of votes for Haley tended to come from urban and suburban areas where Trump suffered massive losses in his two previous presidential campaigns.
More than a million votes have been counted for Haley in Republican primaries and caucuses since the end of her campaign. During that period, Trump received about 5.8 million votes.
Over the same period, more than 600,000 people voted for candidates other than Biden in Democratic primaries and caucuses, and about 4.6 million were for Biden.
On the Democratic side in Pennsylvania, U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota won 7% against Biden, or nearly 70,000 votes as of Wednesday.
Counties had reported about 60,000 for write-in candidates in the Democratic primary — an increase from state elections office figures of 28,372 in 2016 and 34,356 in 2020. A handful of counties had yet to report their write-in totals as of Wednesday, and the breakdown of write-in votes for “uncommitted ” was not immediately available.
All told, about 1 million ballots have been counted apiece in Tuesday’s GOP and Democratic presidential primaries in Pennsylvania, out of 3.5 million registered Republican voters and 3.9 million registered Democratic voters.
Phillips has won three delegates, all in Ohio. Like Haley, he qualified for Pennsylvania’s primary ballot before dropping out of the presidential race. Unlike Haley, Phillips has endorsed Biden.
Haley has yet to endorse anyone.
The Horn editorial team