GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan (Reuters) – Donald Trump on Saturday easily won the Republican caucuses in Michigan, where the party has been riven by infighting that some Republicans fear could hurt his campaign in the key battleground state as he gears up for the general election in November.
The former US president also won the Missouri and Idaho Republican caucuses on Saturday, according to Edison Research.
In all three states Trump trounced Nikki Haley, his last remaining rival for the Republican presidential nomination, moving him closer to becoming his party's White House standard-bearer and a likely general election rematch with President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
In Michigan, Trump beat Haley in all 13 districts taking part in the nominating caucuses, according to the state Republican Party.
Overall, Trump won with nearly 98% percent support: 1,575 votes to just 36 for Haley.
Pete Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican Party's chair, called it an "overwhelming, dominating victory.”
More than 1,600 party insiders participated in the presidential caucus in the western Michigan city of Grand Rapids, where they were choosing delegates for Trump or former UN Ambassador Haley for the party's national nominating convention in July.
Haley is fast running out of time to alter the course of the Republican nominating race. Next up is Super Tuesday on March 5, the biggest day in the primaries, when 15 states and one territory will vote.
With victories in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, the US Virgin Islands, South Carolina, and now Michigan, Missouri and Idaho under his belt, Trump is far and away the frontrunner in the race, with Haley hanging on thanks to support from donors keen for an alternative to the former president.
For this election cycle, Michigan Republicans devised a hybrid nominating system, split between a primary and a caucus.
Trump won the primary convincingly on Tuesday, securing 12 of 16 delegates up for grabs. He took all of Michigan's remaining 39 delegates at stake on Saturday.
At one of the 13 caucus meetings, the participants – knowing Trump would win easily – decided to save time by simply asking anyone who backed Haley to stand up. In a room of 185 voting delegates, 25-year-old Carter Houtman was the only person who rose to his feet.
"It was a little lonely," Houtman told Reuters in an interview afterward.
Houtman said he would likely vote for Trump in November's general election if he is the nominee but felt it was important to stand up for his beliefs on Saturday.
"I didn't like the way that Trump handled himself after the last election," Houtman said.
Dennis Milosch, 87, a Trump supporter, said the former president's dominating win on Saturday underscored how the party has been transformed from one aligned with big business to one focused on the working class.
"Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he pays attention to, responds to, the average person," Milosch said.
RIFT IN MICHIGAN PARTY
The contest in Michigan on Saturday had held the potential for confusion. Internal turmoil has been percolating in the party for months, pitting backers of Michigan's former Republican Party chair, Kristina Karamo, against the faction of party members who voted to oust her on Jan. 6, and installed Hoekstra as chair.
Hoekstra, whom Trump backed as chair, was overseeing the convention in Grand Rapids. Karamo had been planning to chair a dueling convention in Detroit on Saturday, but that was canceled after a Michigan court this week affirmed her ouster and an appeals court denied her request to stay the ruling.
Pro-Karamo party chairs for at least two districts held caucus meetings in separate locations from Grand Rapids in protest. However, the results from those are unlikely to be accepted by the Republican National Committee, which last month formally recognized Hoekstra as state party chair.
Hoekstra was the US ambassador to the Netherlands during Trump's presidency. Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the caucus meetings, he said he was confident the Michigan Republican Party would unite around the objectives of winning the White House and a US Senate seat up for grabs and retaking the state House of Representatives.
"There is not a philosophical divide or an issue divide," Hoekstra said. "This is about getting the party ready to win in November. ... The focus is on beating Joe Biden."
Trump's victories in Missouri and Idaho netted him 54 and 32 delegates respectively.
BIDEN CRITICISED
Earlier, Trump accused President Joe Biden of engaging in a "conspiracy to overthrow the United States" through lax security policies that have allowed millions of migrants to stream across the US border with Mexico.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump appeared to be suggesting, as he has in the past, that Democrats are hoping to convert migrants who enter the country illegally into reliable voters.
Biden’s administration, Trump contended, seeks “to collapse the American system, nullify the will of the actual American voters and establish a new base of power that gives them control for generations.”
Trump elaborated at an evening rally in Richmond, Virginia, after repeating the allegations. Referring to the Biden White House, he said, "They're trying to sign (migrants) up to get them to vote in the next election."
Trump also accused Biden of providing "aid and comfort to foreign enemies of the United States" as part of his border policies.
In response, Biden's campaign pointed to a border security bill in Congress Trump helped torpedo last month by urging Republicans to vote against it.
"Once again Trump is projecting in an attempt to distract the American people from the fact he killed the fairest and toughest border security bill in decades because he believed it would help his campaign. Sad," said Biden spokesperson Ammar Moussa.
Under pressure from Republicans who accuse him of failing to control the border, Biden called on Congress last year to provide more enforcement funding and said he would "shut down the border" if given new authority to turn back migrants.
Last month, however, a bipartisan immigration bill stalled in the US Senate after Trump told Republicans not to support it even though it contained several border-security measures they had sought.
In past statements, Trump has suggested that Democrats are purposefully allowing migrants into the country to grow their political support, a longstanding claim espoused on the far-right known as the “great replacement theory.”
Only US citizens can vote in federal elections. But Trump has made border security a central tenet of his campaign as polls show voters in both parties becoming increasingly concerned about the steady stream of migration.
Both Biden and Trump toured the southern border along Texas in separate visits on Thursday, a sign they each view the issue as politically potent.
Trump frequently claims without evidence, as he did again on Saturday, that migrants have caused a spike in violent crime in US cities.
At the North Carolina rally, Trump called the influx of migrants an “invasion” and said Biden would “turn our public schools into migrant camps.”
“We are not going to let them turn the USA into a crime-filled, disease-ridden dumping ground,” Trump said.
Jennifer Mercieca, a professor at Texas A&M University who has written a book about Trump's rhetoric, said he often uses unfounded conspiracy allegations to undermine opponents with "self-sealing narratives" that can't be proven true or false.
"Previously he's said that Biden's weakness was allowing weakness at the border, but here it's a plot," she said. "Trump has prevented the border bill from passing so that he can make these accusations against Biden."
Trump was campaigning in North Carolina and Virginia ahead of their primaries on Tuesday, two of 16 nominating contests that will be held across the country that likely will push him close to clinching the Republican presidential nomination.