Donald Trump sent a big warning sign about the 2024 race in the Indiana primaries, even though no one is running against him

Donald Trump faced warning signs in Indiana on Tuesday when more than 128,000 voters in the Republican primary opted to vote for another candidate, despite him being the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee and having no opponents in the race.

Trump received more than 78.3 percent of the votes in the primary elections in the red state on Tuesday, more than 461,000 voters.

But more than 128,000 voters, 21 percent, cast their ballots for Nikki Haley, the former Republican presidential candidate who dropped out of the race more than two months ago after Super Tuesday.

Despite having a strong hold on the Republican Party’s majority, Tuesday’s results signal trouble for the former Republican president as he looks to shore up Republican Party support and expand his base ahead of November’s general election.

Indiana is a red state that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2020 with 57 percent of the vote against Joe Biden. The ex-president even expanded his support for the state from 2016 onwards.

In the last twenty-one presidential elections, Democrats have won the state only twice: Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and Barack Obama in 2008.

But Tuesday’s results are just the latest in a series of primaries in which some voters scheduled to cast Republican ballots opted not to stand in line as Trump secured the necessary number of delegates.

“Nikki quit two months ago and still earns a significant share of the primary vote,” said a former Haley aide. “You have to be a bird-brain not to understand that Trump needs Haley Republicans to win in November.”

Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee and has turned his attention to the general election, but Haley continues to receive primary votes from the Republican Party, while Trump should strengthen the party base.

Just two weeks ago, Haley hosted more than 155,000 voters in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary, a significant number in a battleground state that Biden won by fewer than 100,000 voters in 2020.

Haley collected more than half a million votes combined in the March 19 primaries, including those in Florida, Ohio and Arizona, weeks after she withdrew from the race.

She also benefited from Trump’s primary support in some battleground counties in battleground Wisconsin.

Although the ex-president secured the nomination much earlier this year than has happened in previous non-incumbent primaries, Haley has not come out in support of her former boss and political opponent.

Commenting on Indiana’s results, a Trump campaign official pointed out that the state has an open primary, meaning any registered voter can participate in any of the party’s primaries, and that Democrats had few competitive contests.

Haley received a significant number of her votes in Indianapolis and surrounding suburbs.

Nikki Haley received more than half a million votes in the March 19 primary, despite dropping out of the race the day after Super Tuesday. On Tuesday, she received 128,000 votes in the Republican presidential primary in Indiana

Trump’s campaign official argued that Democrats were eager to vote for Haley in previous elections and were in fact encouraged to do so through funded campaigns.

The Trump campaign, which weeks ago gathered the necessary delegates for Trump as its nominee, has spent no money or resources on the primary campaign.

They said they would win Indiana and the White House in November.

But the Biden campaign is doing everything it can to persuade Haley voters to support the president in November.

President Joe Biden’s campaign has been actively courting Nikki Haley voters for the general election

President Biden has openly invited Haley voters to join the group.

The campaign even released an ad in late March making a direct appeal to Haley voters to support Biden and reject Trump. It mainly targeted those in the suburbs where Haley did his bidding during the primaries against Trump.

Meanwhile, Trump has spent most of the past three weeks locked up in a New York courtroom with limited campaign stops in battleground states as he faces criminal charges of falsifying company records in the hush-money case.

When the ex-president is not in court, he has focused much of his campaign efforts on battleground states.

Last week he made stops in Michigan and Wisconsin. This weekend he heads to Wildwood, New Jersey for a campaign rally.

As for Haley, it was announced last month that she was joining the conservative Hudson Institute, her first major move since leaving the primary on March 6.