What just happened in Vermont and American Samoa?
Neither are hugely significant for the broader contest, given the unusual dynamics at play and how small the electorates were. And the result in the U.S. territory is far less important than that in Vermont, for reasons we’ll get to.
But in a presidential primary season full of predictability, they at least provided a momentary jolt.
So what just happened?
Biden’s loss in American Samoa
The result in American Samoa might be the more intriguing of the two, because of who won it.
Palmer is a businessman from Baltimore who loaned his campaign more than $500,000 and assured voters that he’s “actually very well-known” on the mainland. He came out of nowhere to defeat Biden 56 percent to 44 percent and secure three delegates.
That means he’s now won more delegates than Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) — who dropped out of the presidential race Wednesday — and as many as former GOP primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He’s also one shy of Jeb Bush’s 2016 showing.
Palmer won those three delegates despite garnering just 51 votes overall. Current totals show fewer than 100 people voted in the caucuses. In a U.S. territory with a population of about 45,000, just 0.2 percent of people participated — about 1 in every 500 people.
The unusual nature of the contest has been clear for years.
It was the only contest former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg won in the 2020 Democratic primaries, despite spending $1 billion on his campaign. Bloomberg, who never took more than 19 percent in any other contest, won 50 percent there (a grand total of 175 votes).
And this isn’t the first time the territory has snubbed Biden; he took just 9 percent there in 2020. It was his lowest share in any contest except New Hampshire.
If we can say something about the results in American Samoa, it’s that this was a minor embarrassment for Biden’s campaign that was probably avoidable. He became the first incumbent president to lose a contest since Jimmy Carter in 1980.
Trump’s loss in Vermont
The more significant result was in Vermont — an actual state with many more votes that, at the very least, reinforced reservations that certain types of voters have with Trump.
Haley defeated Trump 50 percent to 46 percent, adding a state win to her victory in Sunday’s Washington, D.C., primary.
But Vermont, too, is unusual in American politics.
It has a long tradition of left-leaning politics, but also an affinity for pragmatic Republicans. Gov. Phil Scott (R) has won more than two-thirds of the vote in each of his last two reelection races, and he often ranks as the country’s most popular governor.
Vermont has also proven almost singular in its resistance to Trump. It was his worst state in the 2020 general election and his second-worst in 2016, giving him less than 31 percent of the vote each time. When you combine those elections, Haley has now won in the two places Trump has done the worst on average: Vermont and D.C.
The state did give Trump a narrow win in a crowded GOP primary contest in 2016, but in 2020 it delivered former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld (R) his highest share of the vote of any state against then-President Trump (10 percent).
Vermont has an open primary, meaning pretty much anyone could vote in the GOP contest and against Trump. And while we don’t have exit polls, there is evidence that plenty of Biden voters came out to support Haley.
For instance, Burlington went for Biden 87 percent to 10 percent in the 2020 general election. But on Tuesday, 29 percent of voters picked a GOP ballot. (Haley won there, 70-26.) South Burlington favored Biden 79-18 in 2020, but 42 percent of voters taking part Tuesday did so in the GOP primary.
Vermont in some ways unites the independence of neighboring New Hampshire (Haley’s second-best state) with a more intact tradition of Rockefeller Republicanism than many Northeastern states.
That was perhaps the ideal mixture for Haley, and it gave her a significant parting gift on Tuesday.
But it’s not a brand of politics that resembles many other places in this country. To the extent Trump has actual problems with his base that could matter, it’s more in the suburbs than in places like Vermont.
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