Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun. The nomination phase has effectively ended.
Trump swept Super Tuesday except for Vermont, where there is not party registration and Democratic identifiers were probably responsible for Nikki Haley's surprise win. Tom Nichols at The Atlantic:
Trump was the Republican favorite from the moment former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy went to Mar-a-Lago in 2021 to rehabilitate Trump’s standing in the GOP. His nomination was inevitable the night most of his primary opponents raised their hand on a debate stage—one from which he was absent—and said they’d vote for him if he beat them, even if he was convicted in a court of law. Even Nikki Haley is still dithering to this very moment about whether she’d support a man who calls her “Birdbrain” and whom she has passionately argued is unfit for office.
He earlier lost the DC primary, Instead of just ignoring the loss, he rationalized it:
