Nikki Haley dropped out of the GOP presidential race in early March, but her name on the Pennsylvania ballot still drew more than 156,000 votes from registered Republicans on Tuesday, potentially spelling trouble for Donald Trump, the party's presumptive nominee.
Primary returns show 16.6 percent of voters choosing Haley in Pennsylvania's Republican primary, where only registered party members could participate, with her strongest performance coming in the suburban counties around Philadelphia. President Joe Biden won the state in 2020 by roughly 80,000 votes, in part due to support from Republican-leaning women in the Philadelphia suburbs.
In the suburban counties of Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware, Haley, the former UN ambassador under Trump, managed to get 23-25 percent of the GOP primary vote. Haley also over-performed in some more rural counties where Trump beat Biden, gaining 20-23% of the vote in Lancaster and Cumberland counties.
Haley voters told The Philadelphia Inquirer that they were frustrated with their options. "I don't like [Trump]," said Eric Miller, a 2020 Biden voter who plans on supporting the Democratic nominee again. "I don't think he was a valid president. I think he's a danger to our democracy."
Another Haley voter, Jeffrey Gladstein, said he voted for Trump in 2020 but probably would not support either candidate this cycle in wake of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. “That was a threshold after which I cannot vote for him anymore,” he said.
Trump himself attracted 140,000 fewer voters than President Joe Biden did in Tuesday's primary, despite Biden facing a campaign from pro-Palestine activists who had encouraged voters not to support the incumbent in the Democratic primary.
