Former President Donald Trump officially won the Republican presidential primary on Tuesday, but it was Washington state that gave him his final delegates.
Trump had won nearly 74% of the vote in Washington's presidential primary as of Tuesday night. An estimated 183,000 votes have yet to be counted. Counties have until March 26 to certify final election results, but most are expected to be counted by the end of this week.
In Spokane County, Mr. Trump won nearly the same number of votes, 74%. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley won nearly 21%.
With contest after contest, Mr. Trump's path to the nomination continues almost unimpeded. The only races in which Ms. Haley narrowly won and prevented Mr. Trump from further victories were in Vermont and Washington, D.C., where there were fewer delegates.
If it was a given that the Republican presidential primary race would come to a conclusion early this year, it was even more so on Tuesday. Trump was not the only Republican whose name was cast by voters in Washington, but by election night, about a week after Haley suspended her presidential campaign following her crushing defeat in the super race. Trump was the only candidate who did not drop out of the vote. Tuesday.
Still, some voters refused to support the former president in Tuesday's election. In Georgia, one of the key states where President Trump falsely claimed widespread election fraud after losing to President Joe Biden in 2020, Haley and other candidates remained in total as of Tuesday night. received more than 15% of the votes. Trump appears to have done well in rallying Republican voters in Mississippi, winning more than 92% of the vote in the state.
Tuesday's results weren't a surprise, said state Sen. Judy Wernick (R-Moses Lake), who voted for Haley immediately after receiving her ballot, but said Trump was the party's nominee. He said he now supports Trump.
“I've met Nikki Haley in the past, and I'd love to meet a female president one day,” Wernick said. “I think she was one of the most honest and qualified people I've ever met.”
But for many Republicans, only one candidate has ever really entered the race.
“None of us here thought about (Haley),” said Spokane resident Ida Hightower, a former Spokane County Republican precinct committee official. She said, “There was no one else who could reach the level of Donald Trump.”
Stephen Webenhurst, a Meade resident and current precinct commissioner for the county Republican Party, agreed Tuesday's results were a foregone conclusion, but there was no real competition by the time the primary arrived in Washington. He said it was a shame.
“Four years ago, Trump was the candidate and incumbent, but this time too it feels like Trump was the only choice, which took some of the fun out of voting in the primaries,” Webenhurst said. he said. “I think a lot of people support Trump's policies and ideas, but perhaps not as much support for his personality.”
Webenhurst added that he will be watching closely to see who President Trump picks as his running mate.
“Who Trump chooses will be a big factor in determining whether he can win over some of these swing voters and independents,” he said.
