Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump thanks his supporters after speaking at the “Get Out The Vote” rally at Winthrop University on February 23, 2024 in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
Wayne McNamee | Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump continued his march toward the Republican nomination on Saturday, winning the Missouri caucuses and sweeping delegates at the Michigan caucus. Idaho Republicans planned to hold caucuses later.
Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador and his last major rival, was still searching for her first victory of an election year. The next event on the Republican calendar is Sunday in the District of Columbia. Two days later comes Super Tuesday, when 16 states will hold primaries in what will be the biggest voting day of the year outside of the November election. Trump is on track to close the nomination in days.
The great difficulties facing Haley appeared in Columbia, Missouri, where Republicans gathered in a church to participate in party meetings.
Seth Christensen stood on stage and called on them to vote for Haley. It was not well received.
Another caucus member shouted from the audience: “Are you a Republican?”
An organizer calmed the crowd and Christensen finished his speech. Haley went on to win only 37 of the 263 Republicans who attended in Boone County.
Michigan
Michigan Republicans began their convention in Grand Rapids by allocating 39 of the state's 55 GOP presidential delegates. Trump won all 39 delegates allocated to him.
But a large portion of the party's popular power was absent from the rally due to lingering effects of the months-long dispute over the party's leadership.
Trump easily won the Michigan primary last Tuesday with 68% of the vote compared to 27% for Haley.
Michigan Republicans were forced to split their delegate allocation in two after Democrats, who control state government, moved Michigan to early primary states, violating national Republican Party rules.
Missouri
Voters lined up outside a church in Columbia, home of the University of Missouri, before the doors opened for the caucuses. Once inside, they heard pleas from the candidates' supporters.
“Every 100 days, we spend a trillion dollars, and the money goes all over the world. Illegal immigrants are escaping across the border,” Tom Mendenal, a Trump voter in 2016 and 2020, told the crowd. He later added: “You know where Donald Trump stands on a lot of these issues.”
Then Christensen, a 31-year-old from Columbia who came to the caucus with his wife and three children, ages 7, 5 and 2, urged Republicans to move in a new direction.
“I don't need to hear about Mr. Trump's dalliances with people of unsavory character, and neither do my children,” Christensen told the room. “And if we put this guy in the office, that's what we're going to hear about all the time. And I'm done with that.”
Supporters quickly moved to one side of the room or the other, depending on whether they favored Trump or Haley. There was little discussion among party members after they chose a side.
This year was the first test of the new system, which is run almost entirely by volunteers on the Republican side.
The caucuses were organized after GOP Gov. Mike Parson signed a 2022 law that, among other things, eliminated the presidential primary scheduled for March 12.
Lawmakers failed to rerun the primary despite calls to do so from state Republican and Democratic party leaders. Democrats are scheduled to hold a party-run primary on March 23.
Trump won twice under Missouri's old presidential primary system.
Idaho
Last year, Idaho lawmakers passed cost-cutting legislation that was intended to move all of the state's primaries to the same date in May. But the bill inadvertently eliminated presidential primaries entirely.
The Republican-led Legislature considered holding a special session to redo the presidential primaries, but failed to agree on a proposal in time, leaving both parties with presidential caucuses the only option.
The Democratic caucuses will not be held until May 23.
The last Idaho GOP caucuses were in 2012, when about 40,000 of the state's nearly 200,000 registered Republican voters showed up to choose their preferred candidate.
For this year, all Republican voters who want to participate will have to attend in person. They will vote after hearing short speeches by the candidates or their representatives.
If a candidate receives more than 50% of the statewide vote, that candidate will win all of Idaho's delegates. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, each candidate who receives at least 15% of the total votes will receive a proportional number of delegates.
The Idaho Republican Party will announce the results once all statewide votes are counted.
Trump finished a distant second in the 2016 Idaho primary behind Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
