Former president wins third straight Fla primary. But about the 'never' Trump vote?
Donald Trump voted for himself, and so did the vast majority of the state's Republican voters, as the transplanted Manhattanite won a record third straight Florida presidential preference primary on Tuesday night, though with his lowest vote count yet.
As of Wednesday morning, with 98.8% of votes counted, Trump had collected 81.2% of the vote, and another 125 delegates. But defeated rivals Nikki Haley and Gov. Ron DeSantis pulled in a combined total nearly 20% of GOP ballots cast. Trump stood at 910,897 votes, well short of the 1 million-plus he received in 2020 and 2016.
Still, the race was called immediately after the last Sunshine State polling locations closed in the central-time-zone precincts in the Panhandle. Trump, already the GOP 2024 presumptive nominee, had token opposition — literally just names on the ballot.
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Unlike on Super Tuesday two weeks ago, the former president did not have an election-night watch party. Instead, organizers of a Catholics for Catholics gala at his private Palm Beach club hoped the former president would attend and deliver remarks.
Trump did speak publicly, briefly, as he and former first lady Melania Trump cast their ballots in Palm Beach just after 4 p.m. Tuesday. In previous primary elections, Trump has had his ballot hand-delivered to election officials. But he has been strident — elections experts say inaccurate — in his criticism of mail-in balloting, and this year he cast his vote in person.
"We have a lot of people involved in the campaign. They're doing a tremendous job," Trump said outside the precinct where he voted. "Based on the polls we're doing extremely well. … I am looking forward to Nov. 5."
Trump and the former first lady turned to walk away when he returned to the gaggle of reporters.
"Did somebody just say who'd you vote for?" he said, laughing. "I voted for Donald Trump."
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To vote for Trump in November — or not
A key question to be answered by the state's Republican primary voters is if they will line up firmly behind Trump or whether those who cast so-called protest votes for the other candidates on the ballot, including the erstwhile last-standing opponent Haley, will sit out the November election.
On Tuesday, Haley's vote total topped 155,000 ballots, 13.9%.
In the March 12 Georgia primary, Haley also drew 13% of the vote — more than 77,000 ballots. Previously, and much to Trump's chagrin, Haley captured 43% of the vote in New Hampshire, 39% in her home state of South Carolina and more than a quarter of the votes in Michigan.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump had called on the MAGA movement to head to the polls.
"ARIZONA, FLORIDA, ILLINOIS, KANSAS, AND OHIO, VERY IMPORTANT TO GET OUT AND VOTE — MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" Trump implored in all capital letters post on his social-media site.
The concern pundits and political strategists have raised about Trump has been the significant, seemingly ingrained "never" Trump voting bloc within the GOP itself.
Kevin Wagner, an Florida Atlantic University pollster and political scientist, said it caught his attention that 28.5% of the Republicans surveyed showed unhappiness with the former president's conduct in a poll the university conducted ahead of the March 5 primaries.
The polls and voting patterns could be shedding insight into voters who may not change their minds and will refuse to join the former president's 2024 coalition, Wagner said. That matters because the expectation, and traditional trajectory, is that voters who supported a different intraparty candidate almost universally fall in line with whoever wins the party's nomination.
"Because of how unique the former president is, and how well-held beliefs are about him, we don't know to what extent the voters choosing to vote for Nikki Haley or somebody else are likely to come home," Wagner said in an interview this month. "Many have expressed that they not going to come home."
Florida primary, once viewed as Trump-DeSantis contest for the ages, was non-event
The Florida primary was nonetheless an anti-climactic affair. A year ago, it seemed it would be a contest for the ages as DeSantis prepared to challenge Trump for the nomination, Republican Party leadership and state favorite-son status.
But by the time the Iowa caucuses arrived, DeSantis's campaign had withered in the face of a relentless barrage of personal and policy attacks by Trump and his campaign. The governor folded his campaign in late January and endorsed Trump via a video.
The political ceasefire between the two — Trump publicly proclaimed he was retiring the mocking "Ron DeSanctimonious" nickname — has been unsteady and flinty as both camps have occasionally sniped at each other. DeSantis has yet to appear with Trump in public at a rally or Mar-a-Lago event, for example.
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Trump sets record with third-straight Florida 'W'
Trump is the only Republican to register three consecutive Florida primary wins.
A number of other Republican presidential candidates, including Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, competed for GOP nominations three or more times and their pursuit of the White House put them on Florida primary election ballots multiple times. But they did not achieve three primary wins here.
Trump now can set his sights on another electoral record: winning the Sunshine State in three straight general elections.
Only Nixon, the nation's 37th president, won Florida in three general elections — 1960, 1968 and 1972 — but the victories were not consecutive.
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at [email protected]. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Will never vote diminish record third straight Trump Florida primary win?