Trump wins Michigan Republican primary, NBC projects

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a Get Out The Vote campaign rally held in Waterford Township, Mich on Saturday, Feb 17, 2024.Â

Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post | Getty Images

Donald Trump has won the Michigan Republican presidential primary, NBC News projects.

Tuesday’s result shows the former president and clear GOP frontrunner once again defeating former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, Trump’s last remaining primary rival.

Haley has vowed to keep campaigning at least through Super Tuesday next week, when 15 states and one U.S. territory hold their nominating contests.

Traditionally the biggest day of the primary cycle, Super Tuesday this year is shaping up to be little more than a stepping stone on Trump’s path to a general-election rematch with President Joe Biden.

Haley has not won any Republican primaries or caucuses so far, and there are no upcoming state primaries that she is expected to win. Her campaign has nevertheless organized leadership teams in at least nine Super Tuesday states, the most recent of which was announced earlier Tuesday.

Trump went into the Michigan primary with momentum, having trounced Haley by double-digit margins in her home state of South Carolina just three days earlier.

But there were also warning signs for the former president, who claims that the Republican Party is as unified behind him as it has ever been.

In South Carolina, Haley walked away with nearly 40% of the vote. And while Democrats were allowed to cast ballots in the state’s GOP primary, more than one in five Republican voters there told AP VoteCast that they would not vote for Trump in a general election, Politico reported.

Trump’s path to the nomination, and another shot at the White House, also runs through a thicket of legal troubles.

He is scheduled to stand trial in New York court next month on criminal charges related to alleged hush money payments made to a porn star and others. Another criminal case, based on Trump’s retention of classified documents after leaving the White House in 2020, is set to begin in federal court in Florida in late May.

Trump is also battling two other criminal cases that center on his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of his criminal charges.