Donald Trump wasn’t MAGA’s only winner on Super Tuesday
By the end of the night on Super Tuesday the 2024 presidential race remained largely unchanged. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are still the presumptive nominees. So great are their margins over their respective primary opponents that some pundits were splitting hairs over whether Mr Trump winning Texas by 60 points rather than his 65-point lead in polls boded poorly.
But beyond the unsurprising presidential results, a glance at down-ballot races shows a familiar Republican strategy playing out again. In some states MAGA Republicans are repeating their 2022 playbook by nominating extremist candidates who perform well with their base in a primary contest but face a steeper climb in a general election.
In North Carolina Mark Robinson, the state’s lieutenant-governor, won the Republican gubernatorial primary. A conspiracy theorist who has quoted Hitler and compared gay people to maggots, he attracts hard-core voters (see chart). In November he will face the state’s attorney-general, Josh Stein, a moderate Democrat. In a state that runs three points more Republican than the country, the party was poised to be especially competitive in this race to replace the current term-limited Democratic governor. Instead Mr Robinson risks alienating moderates and independents.
2024-03-07 09:16:49
Source from www.economist.com