Trump Loses 77,000 Votes in Georgia Primary to Haley Despite Her Dropping Out: ‘Major Red Flag’

Despite having no opposition, former President Donald Trump lost a sizable amount of votes to Nikki Haley in the Georgia Republican primary. Experts suggested that the results of this primary implied 'major red flags' for Trump's campaign.

Not everything is looking rosy for the business tycoon, even though he secured the GOP nomination by winning Georgia with 84.5 percent votes, also bagging Mississippi and Washington, Newsweek reported.

Haley garnered 13 percent of the Republican vote in Georgia, or more than 77,000 ballots, even after withdrawing from the GOP primary contest following Super Tuesday. As of 10 p.m., Haley had 45% of the vote in Dekalb County and 39% in Fulton County, per Raw Story. 

Trump has been widely regarded as the clear favorite to win the Republican nomination in 2024 and has emerged victorious from the primary season. But rumors have it that Trump is still having trouble winning over more moderate Republicans, which is something he might need to do to defeat current president Joe Biden in November's general election. Back in 2020, Georgia was lost by Trump by less than 12,000 votes. 

Mike Madrid, GOP political consultant and co-founder of Lincoln Project, posted on X, "This is BIG! Trump's problems in the suburbs continue in Georgia. "Lemme say it again: Trump's got a real problem with the Republican base." Political and legal analyst Bradley Moss agreed, writing on X. "In a race where Haley already dropped out. That’s a major red flag for Trump."

Georgia, one of the closest states in the 2020 presidential election, saw Biden narrowly emerging as the first Democratic nominee to win it in 28 years.

Georgia, home to some of the nation's fastest-growing suburbs around Atlanta, is a key swing state for Trump which he must flip away from Biden. Although he's currently leading against Biden by 7.6 percentage points, as per the Decision Desk survey, he still needs to maintain his lead long enough. Trump did manage to receive more than 496,000 votes, but Haley's receiving more than 77,000 shows serious cracks in his moderate Republican base.

For example, Haley garnered over 2 million votes in all 15 contests on Super Tuesday, and she even managed to pull off an unexpected win in Vermont, a staunchly Blue state. Haley was also able to garner between 20 and 40 percent of the votes in several states, including Massachusetts (37 percent), Colorado (33 percent), Minnesota (29 percent), and North Carolina (23 percent).

There's no assurance that voters who supported Haley in the primary would support Trump in November, especially given the visceral hatred Trump himself has shown these voters. 

Suppose Trump is unable to woo these voters back into the GOP fold. In that case, they might vote for Biden, who won 95.3 percent of Democratic Georgia primary votes and has been trying to chip away Haley's voter base from Republican to Democrat, since most of these voters are from the Never-Trump camp.