Super Beltway insider-y news site Axios, famous for cheerily laundering Republican-friendly messaging to maintain their access, is not so thrilled with how Saturday went for fat former President Trump in South Carolina, that even though he won by 20-ish percent over former Governor Nikki Haley, the exit polls show his GOP coalition “isn’t remotely big enough to win a presidential election. He would need to attract voters who are more diverse, more educated and believe his first loss was legit. South Carolina exit polls show he didn’t do that,” which is, per Axios co-founder Mike Allen, “why some top Republicans are worried about the general election in November, despite Trump’s back-to-back-to-back-to-back wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.”
We’ll maintain that the better test of the Orange God Emperor’s support is going to come during a closed primary – which Dem elections data expert Tom Bonier agreed with on Sunday – but that Axios is going further than we are on this question of what Saturday means is noteworthy. Sure they’re not pointing out that “If Dean Phillips got 40 percent of the vote then it’d be an absolute apocalypse for Joe Biden” like all the Twitter libs are doing (and correctly so because Donald is widely seen as the “quasi-incumbent” in the GOP primary), though this is definitely more coverage of a “warning sign” than we would’ve expected from the guys that brought us Youngkin 2024.