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00:00 Let's get more now on the Republican presidential race.
00:03 Olivia Knox is an independent political analyst in Washington, D.C.
00:08 Olivia Knox, thank you very much for joining us.
00:10 With 80 percent of votes counted thereabouts, Trump's winning margin is around 20 percentage
00:15 points, as we heard.
00:16 That's 10 points fewer than polls predicted.
00:18 Will Haley consider this a victory?
00:20 Well, first, I would say that I expect Donald Trump's margin to grow because he tends to
00:25 perform better among people who vote on Election Day.
00:29 And those are the last ballots that are going to be counted.
00:31 So we should we should see we will know a lot more tomorrow morning when when 100 percent
00:36 of the votes are counted.
00:37 You know, Nikki Haley is staying in this with a message that anointing Donald Trump will
00:42 lead to a defeat in November.
00:44 She says she's staying in through Super Tuesday.
00:46 She's apparently planning to unleash millions of dollars of advertising in Michigan, one
00:50 of the states that votes on March 5th.
00:53 And she's really talking about the shape of the Republican Party going forward.
00:56 So she is going to call this something of a victory.
00:58 She's certainly not admitting defeat.
00:59 She's staying in the race.
01:01 And she whether she's positioning herself for some dramatic development in which Donald
01:04 Trump can't be the nominee or is simply looking ahead to 2028 remains to be seen.
01:10 Now is Super Tuesday the end of the road for Haley then or might she stay even beyond the
01:14 5th of March?
01:16 That's going to depend on her donors.
01:17 You know, money is the lifeblood of American politics.
01:20 If she can still pull together millions of dollars and and I don't I don't I don't know
01:26 whether she will or not, but if she's still able to pull money together and still able
01:30 to make this sort of anyone but Trump, I beat Biden by a bigger margin to the polls, if
01:36 she could still draw in that cash, I don't know that she'll drop out.
01:38 You know, she's she's really taken she's kind of taken flight in this last part of the campaign.
01:43 Her attacks on Donald Trump have become a lot sharper.
01:47 You know, she's calling him unhinged, offensive, mean and and poking poking fun and taking
01:53 aim at some of his verbal slip ups, much the way that Republicans go after Biden's.
01:58 She's sharpened her tone.
01:59 Now, is it too little too late?
02:00 Probably.
02:01 I don't think there's a lot of suspense here about who the Republican nominee is going
02:04 to be, but she's positioning herself in the future.
02:07 And while Trump's popularity just seems to keep feeding itself, whatever happens, but
02:11 he could himself face financial troubles, couldn't he, with hundreds of millions to
02:15 pay in legal fees and penalties?
02:17 And his campaign has been his super PACs in his campaign have been dispersing tens of
02:21 millions of dollars to cover his legal fees.
02:24 That's a potential problem for Donald Trump.
02:25 You know, Joe Biden's financial picture is much healthier than the Republican front runners.
02:32 The other thing to think about is, while the primary outcome is not really in doubt, honestly,
02:38 what does it say about the November electorate that and again, it won't be 40 percent more
02:43 wake up tomorrow, but that some double digit number of Republicans are backing someone
02:47 other than Trump?
02:48 Now, Nikki Haley has said in the past that she'll pull the lever for Donald Trump in
02:51 November if it's a Trump Biden rematch.
02:54 But there's some number of Republicans who won't.
02:55 And while we have about 160 some odd eligible registered voters in America, the last couple
03:01 of elections been decided by only about 60000 votes across a handful of battleground states.
03:07 So what does it say that, let's say, 30 percent of Republicans in South Carolina don't want
03:13 to go vote for Donald Trump?
03:15 Indeed, unity word on both the both the tongues of the candidates.
03:20 But it doesn't seem like there is much unity in the Republican Party.
03:23 Olivia Knox, thank you very much for joining us here on France 24.
03:26 Bye.