Donald Trump suffered a blow in Tuesday’s primary in Florida, a state he only narrowly won in the 2020 presidential election, after thousands of Republicans refused to vote for him.
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While the former president won the primary with 910,857 votes, 81.2 percent of the overall share, some 197,000 people, or 17.8 percent, voted for either Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis, despite both candidates having dropped out of the race.
The results suggest the former president is losing support in Florida compared with the previous election in 2020. That year, he won about 94 percent of the state vote in the primary.
The Republican went on to take the state in 2020 by a slim margin, securing 51.2 percent of the vote to Joe Biden’s 47.9 percent.
Newsweek contacted a representative for Trump by email to comment on this story.
Last week, Trump was confirmed as the GOP nominee for November’s presidential election after securing enough delegates across multiple primaries. He looks set to face-off against Democratic incumbent Biden in a rematch of the 2020 election.
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Despite enjoying widespread support from members of his party, a significant number of moderates in the GOP have said they would never vote for the former president and the party has seen infighting in Congress and in its governing body, the Republican National Committee in recent weeks.
Haley, the former South Carolina governor, dropped out of the primary race earlier this month in the wake of Super Tuesday, but still received 13.9 percent of the vote in Florida, 155,461 votes in total according to the Associated Press.
DeSantis, the governor of Florida, received 41,233 votes, amassing 3.7 percent of the total share. He dropped out of the race in January and then endorsed Trump.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Democratic pollster and strategist Matt McDermott said the results showed division within the Republican Party.
“This is not a united Republican Party,” he said.
Last week Trump also lost a number of votes to Haley in the Georgia Republican primary, in which she received 13 percent of the vote, more than 77,000 ballots.
The Republican National Convention, where Trump will be confirmed as the 2024 nominee, will take place in Milwaukee in July.
Update 03/20/24, 5:25 a.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information.
