WASHINGTON, United States: Donald Trump moved toward his goal of the Republican presidential nomination on Saturday, winning the Missouri caucus and dominating Michigan’s congressional delegation.
Trump defeated his last remaining challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, Nikki Haley, in both states to become the party’s standard-bearer for the White House and raise the possibility of a rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden in the general election.
In Michigan, Trump beat Haley in all 13 districts contested, according to the state GOP.
In all, Trump won with 1,575 votes to Haley’s 36, with nearly 98 percent support.
Pete Hoekstra, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, called it a “resounding, resounding victory.”
More than 1,600 party officials attended the presidential rally in Grand Rapids, a city in western Michigan, to select delegates to the party’s national nominating convention in July, including President Trump and former UN Ambassador Haley.
Republicans also held meetings in Idaho on Saturday, and Haley is expected to hold a campaign rally ahead of big Tuesday, March 5, the biggest day of the primary with 15 states and one district on the ballot. This will be one of the last points of contention.
Trump is the front-runner in the race, having won Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, the US Virgin Islands, South Carolina and now Michigan and Missouri.
For this election cycle, the Michigan Republican Party devised a hybrid nomination system that is divided into primaries and caucuses.
Trump won a landslide victory in Tuesday’s primary, winning 12 of the 16 delegates. He had all 39 of Michigan’s remaining delegates in the race on Saturday.
At one of the 13 rallies, attendees knew Trump would win easily, so they decided to save time by simply asking Haley’s supporters to stand. Carter Hutman, 25, was the only one of the 185 voting delegates to stand.
“I was a little sad,” Hutman told the media afterward.
“I didn’t like the way that Trump handled himself after the last election,” Houtman said.
