AP Photo/Paul Sancya
- Former President Donald Trump has won the Michigan GOP primary, according to multiple outlets.
- The victory comes less than a week after his primary win in South Carolina.
- Nikki Haley stumped in Michigan in recent days, but Trump retains a reservoir of support in the state.
Former President Donald Trump won the Michigan GOP presidential primary on Tuesday, according to multiple outlets, continuing his march to the party's nomination ahead of Super Tuesday.
Since January, Trump has emerged victorious in the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primary, Nevada caucuses, and South Carolina primary. And now he has added Michigan to that list.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump's last remaining major GOP opponent in the race, traveled to Michigan this weekend to make her case to voters after losing her home state to the former president on Saturday.
Early returns showed Trump up by a significant margin, but Haley appeared to win over a sizable minority of voters in Oakland County, a suburban locality north of Detroit, and Washtenaw County, which is home to Ann Arbor.
Haley vowed to continue in the race through at least Super Tuesday, on March 5, arguing that Republican voters deserved to have choices in the primary — while also continuing to make the case that the country had to turn the page from the Trump era in order to move forward on consequential issues like the budget and immigration.
But the GOP electorate remains enamored with the former president, judging by his track record in the earlier contests.
Trump narrowly won Michigan in the 2016 general election, besting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a state that until that year had backed every Democratic presidential nominee since 1992. The Republican made significant inroads with working-class voters in suburban Detroit and rural voters across the state.
However, now-President Joe Biden flipped the state blue in 2020, running up Democratic vote margins in cities like Detroit and Kalamazoo, while also performing well in jurisdictions like Kent and Oakland counties.
Biden won the Democratic primary on Tuesday, but a push for voters to select "uncommitted" over the president's handling of the Israel-Hamas war has emerged as a major problem for the incumbent, as a segment of the party has called for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. It's a position that the administration has so far rejected as they instead call for a temporary cease-fire.