Around Here, Haley Won Primary By a Landslide

Nikki Haley crushed Donald Trump, 876 to 267, among voters who cast GOP ballots in the City of Falls Church during Super Tuesday primary voting this Tuesday. That amounted to 75 percent for Haley to 22.8 percent for Trump, a stunning blow-out majority. On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden ran away with over 90 percent of the votes cast, reflecting a statewide and national pattern.

While Trump easily won the GOP primary statewide in Virginia, in Northern Virginia among Falls Church’s jurisdictional neighbors, the result was the exact opposite. Trump’s lone challenger, former South Carolina Governor Haley, who has since dropped out after winning only one of 12 state primaries Tuesday, overwhelmed Trump by wide margins not unlike the one in Falls Church.

The GOP voting in this region produced results comparable to Falls Church’s.

In Arlington and Alexandria, for example, Haley ran away with 73.7 and 71,4 percent of the votes to 23.8 and 25.7 percent for Trump. In Fairfax County, the margin was closer, but still went for Haley by 56 to 41.5 percent. In Fairfax City, it was 56.6 percent for Haley and 39.45 percent for Trump.

All the other candidates on the GOP ballot, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, Ryan Binkley and Vivek Ramaswamy, garnered only a fraction of the votes in this region. Overall GOP voter turnout was highest in Fairfax City at 12.28 percent of registered voters, followed by 10.56 percent in Fairfax County and 10.23 percent in Falls Church.

In the outer portions of this region, Trump prevailed in Loudoun County and Prince William counties, but by close margins. In Loudoun, he had 51.7 percent of the GOP vote to 45.8 percent for Haley, and in Prince William he had 60.7 percent to 36.5 percent for Haley. 

Both nationally and in Virginia statewide, Trump sailed almost effortlessly to win among Republicans (except for Vermont, which was Haley’s only statewide win aside from the District of Columbia), and Haley suspended her campaign yesterday.

But most credible election observers agree that even with only roughly 30 percent of the votes in GOP primaries overall, the Haley totals represent a big problem for Trump going into the November general election, because a significant percentage of those who voted for Haley have said they will not vote for Trump in November.

Exit polling by The Washington Post Tuesday as reported in that newspaper  found that a significant 16 percent of Trump voters in Virginia said they would not vote for Trump if he were convicted of a crime, even among the 94 percent of Republicans voters overall who claimed that Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election.

For the Democrats in Virginia, the overwhelming majority who voted in their party’s primaries for President Biden was a heartening result. 

Democratic Party of Virginia chair Susan Swecker stated, “Virginia Democrats sent a loud and clear message: we are unequivocally behind President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Virginia Republicans did the same as it pertains to Donald Trump. President Biden and Vice President Harris have fought tooth and nail to build an economy that works for everyone and save American democracy from the fascist, destitute bigot that Virginia Republicans just pledged their allegiance to. We will work day and night to ensure that Virginians cast their votes in an overwhelming majority for President Biden and Vice President Harris.”