AP Photo/Steve Helber
Donald Trump emerged a huge winner Tuesday night, clinching 20 primary wins and burying his Republican opponent, Nikki Haley, in the delegate avalanche many had predicted. There is no path for Ms. Haley, who must virtually run the table on the remaining contests and win close to 75 percent of the remaining delegates to mount a historic comeback. That won’t happen. The GOP wants Trump. They hate Haley, and even her more ardent supporters, all six of them, must sit her down and pry into her psyche because this is just lunacy. And while the former president didn't mention Haley, he threw her words back at her in his victory speech at Mar-a-Lago.
Over the weekend, Haley said she's not worried about wins or losses in this primary because she's focused on what's ahead.
"When you’re in a race, you don’t think about losing. You think about continuing to go forward," she said.
Trump embodied that sentiment by already looking past Ms. Haley as a serious contender because she's not. The former president should focus all his energy on attacking the Democrats. That's moving forward, Ms. Haley. It comes with the territory when you wing primaries, something you haven't done often.
The former president mocked Joe Biden’s trips to the beach in his remarks while thanking his family and staff and called for unity before the rematch with Biden. It was a restrained Trump who touted his accomplishments from his first presidency, promising to bring back that energy to rebuild the country.
Under Biden, America is being laughed at abroad. Trump promised to reverse that, noting how the world wasn’t in chaos while plugging his foreign policy achievements, notably the Abraham Accords. He also had to throw in how we bombed ISIS into submission. America will not be taken advantage of under a second Trump term.
The Trump operation no longer views Nikki Haley as a serious contender, which has been known for some time. This speech isn’t the first time he’s largely avoided mentioning or attacking the former South Carolina governor, who has no chance at being the GOP nominee. That’s fine. As much as I want Trump to torch Haley, she’s doing a better job of that through her own actions, selfishly remaining in a contest that she lost weeks ago.
Haley seems more obsessed about Trump than beating Democrats, as the former UN ambassador hinted that she might not even honor the Republican National Committee pledge to back the eventual nominee.
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