Former President Donald Trump will be looking to keep his winning streak alive in the Michigan primary Tuesday and put another nail in the coffin of Nikki Haley’s presidential aspirations.
Two days after losing the primary in her home state of South Carolina, Ms. Haley parachuted into Michigan, ignoring the calls for her to drop out of the race so the party could start coalescing around Mr. Trump.
“Donald Trump’s not watching out for the Republican Party,” Ms. Haley told supporters Monday in Grand Rapids. “He’s not watching out for America. He’s watching out for himself.”
Ms. Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, said her old boss “pushes people away from the Republican Party” and said that will come back to haunt the party up and down the ticket in the general election.
The reality, however, is Mr. Trump has a solid lead in the latest polls and is expected to cruise to another victory in Michigan, adding to his momentum.
Michigan is unique in that it is using a hybrid nomination process that includes the state-run primary on Tuesday and then the statewide nominating GOP convention on Saturday where the lion’s share of the delegates to the national convention will be up for grabs.
The dueling contests come after the Democrat-controlled legislation passed a law last year that moved up the state’s primary date, as part of a desire to have more influence over the early stages of the nomination process.
Republicans, in turn, opted to hold a pair of contests in part to comply with national party rules that forbid state parties from holding nomination contests before March 1.
In the primary race, 16 of the state’s 55 delegates will be on the line, and the remainder will be awarded during the congressional district conventions.
Things could get messy due to a spat between different factions of the Republican Party with the current and former chairs of the state GOP planning separate convention events.
The Democrat primary process is more straightforward with the delegates set to be awarded proportionally based on the results.
Mr. Biden is expected to notch another big win, fending off a longshot challenge from Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota.
But it has not been a total cakewalk for Mr. Biden. He suffered blowback from Michigan’s large Arab American community, including vows to pick the “uncommitted” option on the Democratic ballot, because Mr. Biden supports Israel in its war on Hamas in Gaza.
A new Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey of Michigan voters showed that 69% of Republican primary voters plan to cast their support behind Mr. Trump, 20% for Ms. Haley and 11% are undecided.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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