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‘Rejection of Trump’: 1 in 5 Indiana GOP Voters Just Cast Their Ballot for Nikki Haley

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Nikki Haley dropped out of the 2024 presidential race exactly two months ago, and yet on Tuesday 128,000 Indiana GOP primary voters cast their ballot for the former Trump UN Ambassador instead of the presumptive Republican nominee.

“Unexpected warning signs for Trump in busy Indiana primary,” reports Politico, which notes, “Nikki Haley’s performance in the already concluded presidential race could be a sign of trouble for Trump in more competitive states.”

Haley, also a former South Carolina governor, was consistently getting double-digit percentages of the GOP primary vote before she dropped out of the race, even in red states. (All vote totals and percentages are from the Associated Press via Google and are current as of time of publication.)

In Alabama, Haley took 13%. In Oklahoma, 15.9%. In Texas, 17.4%. Tennessee, 19.5%.

READ MORE: ‘This Isn’t Justice’: Legal Experts Blast Cannon for Postponing Trump Case Indefinitely

But after Haley dropped out, effectively handing Trump the nomination, Republican primary voters continued to vote for her, and continued to vote for her almost always in double-digit percentages.

In Arizona, Haley won 17.8% of the primary vote. In Georgia, 13.2%. In Kansas, 16.1%.

And last night in Indiana, Haley took 21.7% of the vote.

It’s not just solidly “red” states.

In New Hampshire, Haley won a whopping 43.2% 0f the GOP primary vote.

Tuesday night as the Indiana results were still coming in but pretty much solidified, David Nir, publisher of Daily Kos Elections, asked, “Is Nikki Haley getting *more* popular? Right now, she’s at 21.6% in Indiana with more than 70% reporting. If it holds, that would be her best showing since dropping out after Super Tuesday.”

Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, replied, “No. It doesn’t have much at all to do with Nikki Haley. It’s that the broadest coalition in American politics is the anti-Trump coalition.”

READ MORE: Johnson Demands All Trump Prosecutions Cease, Vows to Use Congress ‘In Every Possible Way’

Amanda Carpenter, a Republican political commentator who once worked for far-right GOP lawmakers including Senators Ted Cruz and Jim DeMint, agrees with the anti-Trump theory.

“It’s almost as if…more and more Republicans, each day, are rejecting Trump. Perhaps these [Indiana] voters heard what their former congressman and Governor and later Vice President Mike Pence had to say about the president he served?” she wrote. “In all seriousness though, this is not a Nikki Haley movement showing up in double digits in multiple states. It’s anti-Trump GOP voters. Can you hear them yet? This is real.”

The New York Times last month took a look at what is called the “zombie vote,” votes for candidates who have already dropped out.

According to the Times, the “zombie vote in this year’s Republican primary has actually been low by historical standards. In Democratic and Republican primaries going back to 2000, roughly a quarter of voters picked a candidate other than the eventual nominee even after all the other serious contenders had exited the race.”

READ MORE: Trump Threatens to Violate Gag Order and Go to Jail: ‘I’ll Do That Sacrifice Any Day’

“For Mr. Trump,” the Times adds, “what matters is how many of Ms. Haley’s primary voters will rally behind him come November. Polls have shown that her supporters are likely to say they will vote for Mr. Biden. Even so, those same polls often find that many of those voters already supported Mr. Biden in 2020.”

The Nation’s John Nichols last month pointed to just that, after the Pennsylvania primary:

“Haley is not campaigning, but she just won almost 158,000 GOP primary votes in the critical state of Pennsylvania. Democrats think they can swing many of them to Biden.”

Late Tuesday night, pointing to Haley taking more than a third of the vote in some Indiana counties, Nichols concluded, “These numbers continue a pattern of rejection of Donald Trump by precisely the Republicans and Republican-leaning independents he needs in November.”

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‘Deeply Concerned’: Top Republicans Scorch RFK Jr. Over Vaccines

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September 4, 2025

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The Senate’s second-highest ranking Republican, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY)—a physician—delivered a blistering rebuke of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., accusing him of advancing vaccine policies that undermine public health. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy—also a physician—also harshly questioned the HHS chief.

“Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines,” Senator  Barrasso began. “Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.”

READ MORE: ‘What You Said Were Lies’: Democrat Shreds RFK Jr. in Fiery Exchange

“The public has seen measles outbreaks, leadership with the National Institutes of Health questioning the use of mRNA vaccines, the recently confirmed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fired. Americans don’t know who to rely on,” Barrasso exclaimed.

The Wyoming Republican noted that 89% of voters and 81% of Trump voters agree that “vaccine recommendations should come from trained physicians, scientists, public health experts.”

“If we’re going to make America healthy again, we can’t allow public health to be undermined,” Barrasso charged. “So could you explain what steps you’re going to be taking to ensure vaccine guidance is clear, evidence based, and trustworthy?”

READ MORE: Rubio Says US Blew Up Alleged Drug Boat ‘On the President’s Orders’ — Legality Questioned

Kennedy responded: “We’re going to make it clear, evidence based, and trustworthy for the first time in history.”

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who has faced harsh criticism from Democrats who consider him the pivotal vote in confirming Kennedy to HHS, also blasted RFK Jr.

The New York Times, which described Thursday’s hearing with RFK Jr. as a “withering barrage of questioning from a Senate committee on his vaccine policy and his record as President Trump’s health secretary,” reported that Senator Cassidy had “voted to confirm Kennedy on the condition that he wouldn’t disrupt access to vaccines.” But Cassidy “said that he believes Kennedy is in fact doing so through his actions as secretary.”

“We’re denying people vaccine,” Cassidy told Kennedy.

“You’re wrong,” Kennedy replied.

Watch the video below or at this link.

 

READ MORE: Judges Slam SCOTUS as Trump Demands High Court Reverse His Tariff Defeats

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‘What You Said Were Lies’: Democrat Shreds RFK Jr. in Fiery Exchange

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3 hours ago

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September 4, 2025

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U.S. Senator Michael Bennet dismantled Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s testimony in a blistering Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday, accusing him of peddling “lies.”

In the heated debate, Senator Bennet, saying he quoted manufacturers on vaccine safety, blasted Kennedy.

“I quoted them today. What I said was accurate. What you said were lies,” Bennet charged.

The conversation got more heated, with Kennedy demanding Bennet answer his questions, a tactic the HHS chief has used before.

“You’re evading the question,” Kennedy said.

READ MORE: Judges Slam SCOTUS as Trump Demands High Court Reverse His Tariff Defeats

“No, I’m asking the questions here,” Bennet declared.

“You’re evading that question,” Kennedy repeated. “I asked you a question.”

“I’m asking the questions, Mr. Kennedy, on behalf of parents and schools and teachers all over the United States of America who deserve so much better than your leadership,” Bennet said, blasting Kennedy.

“That’s what this conversation is about,” he added.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Rubio Says US Blew Up Alleged Drug Boat ‘On the President’s Orders’ — Legality Questioned

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Judges Slam SCOTUS as Trump Demands High Court Reverse His Tariff Defeats

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4 hours ago

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September 4, 2025

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A dozen federal judges are criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court, and in particular Chief Justice John Roberts, for what they say is a pattern of overturning their rulings in cases involving President Donald Trump’s policies while offering little explanation — or none at all. Their rare rebuke comes just as the President has demanded the high court reverse lower court rulings yet again, this time in a pivotal case: Trump’s massive tariffs, which many legal experts and several courts have already deemed unconstitutional.

“Lower court judges are handed contentious cases involving the Trump administration,” NBC News reports in an exclusive. “They painstakingly research the law to reach their rulings. When they go against Trump, administration officials and allies criticize the judges in harsh terms. The government appeals to the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority.”

“And then the Supreme Court, in emergency rulings, swiftly rejects the judges’ decisions with little to no explanation,” according to NBC News. “A short rebuttal from the Supreme Court, they argue, makes it seem like they did shoddy work and are biased against Trump.”

READ MORE: Rubio Says US Blew Up Alleged Drug Boat ‘On the President’s Orders’ — Legality Questioned

One judge called the current environment “inexcusable,” lamenting the SCOTUS justices “don’t have our backs.”

NBC noted that when federal judges rule against Trump and his administration, “they are frequently targeted by influential figures in MAGA world and sometimes Trump himself, who called for a judge who ruled against him in a high-profile immigration case to be impeached. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has said the administration is the victim of a ‘judicial coup.'”

At the center of the controversy is the Supreme Court’s growing reliance on its ‘shadow docket,’ a mechanism the Trump administration has repeatedly used to its advantage.

READ MORE: ‘Fantasyland’: Democrat Denounces Trump’s ‘Unhinged’ Plan for ‘Personal Greed and Power’

Instead of filing a petition for the Supreme Court to hear a case and waiting for oral arguments to be scheduled if it agrees, Trump has often bypassed the process — nearly two dozen times since January — by going directly to the justices with emergency requests.

Seventeen times the Supreme Court has granted Trump’s emergency requests.

Late on Wednesday night, the Trump administration again went to SCOTUS, this time demanding the justices overturn the rulings of two separate courts, which had deemed his tariffs unlawful and unconstitutional.

On Friday, in a 7-4 ruling, a federal appeals court affirmed an earlier U.S. Court of International Trade decision that Trump’s sweeping and unilateral imposition of tariffs exceeded his authority.

The Supreme Court has yet to respond.

READ MORE: ‘Monsters’: The Five Trump Cabinet Secretaries a Top Political Scientist Wants Impeached

 

Image via Reuters

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