America's Talking - Trump Touts Victory as Primary Steamroll Continues

Episode Date: January 27, 2024

Former President Donald Trump touted his victory Wednesday afternoon in the state of New Hampshire, where he won the Republican presidential primary and may have sealed the fate of his only remaining opponent: former UN Ambassador and South Carolins Gov. Nikki Haley. Trump won contested races in Iowa last week and New Hampshire this week, making him the first non-incumbent presidential candidate to do so in modern history. In another record, Trump’s win was fueled in part by record voter turnout, with 320,000 New Hampshire voters heading to the polls. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulip, vice president of news and content at the Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today, as he does each and every week is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper. How are you, Casey? Doing good, Dan. How are you? I am doing fine. Thank you. Casey, we're recording this on Friday, January 26. Another primary is behind us, New Hampshire, where Trump again. dominated. Of course, he's down to really just one viable challenger, a former South Carolina governor and ambassador, Nikki Haley. Haley put a lot of stock in New Hampshire. Spent

a lot of money there, spent a lot of time there. She could not get within 10 percentage points of the former president there. We're next on to South Carolina. Actually, there's Nevada caucuses next, but South Carolina is the next focus, Nikki Haley's home state. There Some saying that that's Haley's last chance, last fan, to stay in this thing. Polls showed Trump dominating Haley, though, in her home state. Is this race over? Casey, what do you think is happening? Yeah, when you said there's a primary going on, I almost interrupted you and said,

there is? I think that's how all of Trump supporters definitely are ready to wrap this primary up, put a bow on it. Of course, they want it to be done. And it would be advantageous for Trump. and his campaign to be done with the primary because every state that Nikki Haley drags this on, it costs money for the Trump campaign. He takes attacks. He takes those negative TV ads in those primary states. He has to use his staff's resources and time and energy talking about Nikki

Haley instead of attacking Biden for the border crisis, for instance, which is what he wants to focus on a lot. He wants to get his messaging, and he has been more disciplined in messaging so far. going after Biden. He wants to be going to states that are swing states in the general election instead of these early primary states. You know, Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina are great states. They're important, but they're not states that are going to side the general election, right? And so the more time he has to spend there while Biden isn't is just, you know, it's hurting Trump's campaign. It's hurting his momentum, all that. However, the way he's been dominating in these races, as you said, have helped his momentum. And I was surprised to see, Dan, that Haley did not drop out after New Hampshire because I think

she's, you know, potentially set up for a big embarrassment in South Carolina. The polling averages that I've seen have her down, you know, they vary, of course, as polls do. But as much as, you know, maybe 30 points that she's losing by in South Carolina. So it's not like New Hampshire where she was maybe going to be single digits could pull off an upset. South Carolina is looking bad. And for her to lose her home state, I think we'll be particularly embarrassing, and we know that Trump is not above rubbing that in her face, right? I mean, as he did, and here's a good example of that, Tim Scott, who's a senator for South Carolina, who was appointed by Nikki Haley in 2012. So, Nikki Haley made Tim Scott a senator. Now, of course, he ran for re-election and won in his own right.

But Nikki Haley appointed Tim Scott, and now Tim Scott is fawning at the feet of Trump. And there was a really interesting exchange, Dan, before I handed back to you, where Trump looks at Tim Scott and says, man, you must really hate Haley, huh? She appointed you. Basically, she appointed you. She's from your home state and you endorsed me. And so those are the kind of embarrassments of pointed jabs are going to pile up for Haley if this race continues. And we'll see if it does. Of course, you could drop out at any time. Things can change. Trump has his legal issues. But right now, that's the trajectory that it's going. Yeah, and more and more elected, you know, U.S. senators, Republican U.S. senators, Republican U.S. representatives, et cetera. They're falling in line with the Trump campaign endorsing the former president. I don't know that Haley's gotten a single endorsement from a sitting U.S. senator, for example. She's losing momentum. Again, her home state of South Carolina is up next. One side note, Casey don't want to take us there for too long, but an interesting thing about New Hampshire, whose primaries were Tuesday, is President Biden on the Democratic side wasn't even on the ballot there because a dispute over when New Hampshire held its primary. Democrats wanted the state to move further back in the calendar, saying it wasn't representative from a demographic

standpoint of the country as a whole. But New Hampshire went ahead with its Democratic primary, so Biden's name wasn't on the ballot, but he won anyway with a right-in campaign. Essentially, more people wrote in President Biden's name on the Democratic side than circled off other candidates. So Biden is the nominee on the Democratic side. There is a nomination primary process on that side, but Biden will be guaranteed. to be on the bout unless, of course, there are health and age concerns about President Biden, unless something happens here, hopefully not, of course. But we are, it's looking like it's a rematch of 2020. It's still only January, and we've only had two states way in. But come on,

it's Biden versus Trump in November, right? It does. It definitely seems that way. There are, the only big caveats are Trump's legal issues, which we can talk about in a minute if we'd like. But on the Biden issue, I think you're right, this primary is totally locked up. There is Dean Phillips, who's a Democratic congressman, but he's just been unable to get the momentum. I think there's no appetite in the party to replace Biden with Phillips. The only way at this point that Biden is out, and I think there is a real chance of this, actually, is some kind of coup within the leadership of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Convention, right? Because you have a couple things going on here.

You have Biden with his age and his mental. health, it seems to be declining every month or so, it seems worse. And there could be a growing concern there. There could just, you know, it wouldn't be that surprising, God forbid, if there was a real, you know, physical health concern given his age. And then the other reason that the Democratic Party, the people behind the scenes who run the convention, who could have some kind of power to do, for instance, what they did to Bernie Sanders with Hillary Clinton, right? They really pulled the rug out from Bernie Sanders in a business. big way in 2016 to help Hillary Clinton. The other reason they might do that against Biden is

Biden is polling poorly against Trump. I mean, in swing states, by the account of every poll, if the election were held today, Trump would have a landslide victory. And that seems really obvious. So unless something changes in the poll, something changes in this campaign, Trump is on his way to victory in November. And Biden is not exactly the dynamic personality anymore who can go out on the campaign trail. He's not Obama. He can't go hit, you know, 20 states and 25 days and rally up the crowds and get people going. He's just not really, that's just not who he is anymore if he ever was that person. And so you're, there's kind of a slow motion loss happening here within the Democratic Party. And there are a couple, maybe one person, uh, who could perform well

against Trump and be have enough momentum to replace by it. And our poll found actually, Dan, that someone like Michelle Obama could be that person. To be clear, she's shown no interest in that, that publicly we are speculating, but the polling does support her. And I just want our listeners to know that you heard it here, if not first, you heard it here early if something like Michelle Obama coming to replace Biden. Making a somewhat prediction, maybe? I'm not quite sure what that was. No, this is great because I get credit for it if it happens, but I don't get blamed if it doesn't happen. It's just kind of a prediction.

Oh, right, right, right. Okay, so that's the easy way out there. Yes, yes, for sure. As long as Nikki Haley stays in the race, the Republican side of the primaries, KC are still relevant. They are still news, and we'll continue to cover them at thecenter Square.com. But it's sort of like sending a news reporter to cover the Harlem Go Globetrotters and get a game story out of it. Who won? How did the flow of the game go, et cetera? That's how dominant Trump has been.

Yeah, yeah. Except there's not the spryness and style of the Globetrotters anywhere to be seen in this campaign between two 80-year-olds. But yes. Why don't we close with that, Casey? Listeners can keep up with the primaries as long as they're still news at thecentersquare.com for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McCaleb. Please subscribe. Thank you for listening.

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