One of the moldiest political tropes around is the one that says a presidential candidate needs to run to the base during the primaries and then pivot to the center once he or she locks down the nomination. It makes some strategic sense, for sure, and we've seen it in action many times — but it doesn't always work. Donald Trump is not one for standard campaign strategy so even though he's the de facto nominee of the Republican Party for president, he's not making any kind of pivot to the center. If anything he's embracing the MAGA base ever more tightly, even though there is a substantial minority of his party that's rejecting him in these primaries.
Over the weekend Trump bagged some more wins in caucuses in Michigan, Idaho and Missouri, all three of which were the result of amateur hour mistakes by local and party officials who messed up the usual primary system. From what we can gather there still exists an anti-Trump vote among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents. We'll see on Super Tuesday if that phenomenon (which I wrote about last week) continues, even as it's obvious that Trump is the nominee.
