Two in 10 to as many as three in 10 Republican primary voters in Ohio continued to resist former President Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy – and among those supporting Nikki Haley, nearly half in an ABC News exit poll of Ohio’s GOP primary said they’d back Joe Biden in November.
While majorities of respondents expressed fealty toward Trump, the extent of intraparty challenges may matter in what’s expected to be a close contest in November against President Biden. Despite his having sewn up his party’s nomination, 20% of Ohio GOP primary voters would be dissatisfied with Trump as the nominee, exit polling found, while 22% said he lacks the temperament to serve effectively and 28% said he wouldn’t be fit for office if convicted of a crime. (He denies all wrongdoing.)
80k out of 1.05mil is 7.6%. If you consider that 7.6% of Republican primary voters are considering voting for Biden, then those numbers look a little different. If 7.6% of Republicans in Ohio who voted for Trump in 2020 decided to vote for Biden in 2024 then that could certainly change the outcome of the election.
A 7.6% change would result in Biden having 2.919 million votes and Trump with 2.914 million votes. While some of these Haley voters probably already voted for Biden in 2020, there could still be a large enough shift in voter choice to make a difference. Especially if the Democrats have a large turnout in the general election. After the bullshit that Republicans have been up to lately, I think that people are at least angry enough to go out and vote out of spite.
Edit: Nevermind, I’m probably wrong. I didn’t realize that Ohio has open primaries, so these numbers probably don’t matter.