Pa. GOP prepares for Trump-Biden rematch as Nikki Haley drops out

For Philadelphia GOP chairman Vince Fenerty, former President Donald Trump’s primary victory was a foregone conclusion long before Super Tuesday.

But the expected became the official Wednesday when former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, whom Fenerty supported, suspended her campaign, leaving Trump the last remaining major candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination. Now Fennerty and Republicans across Pennsylvania are pivoting to November, some begrudgingly, many gleefully.

“He will do well in Philly,” Fenerty said Wednesday of Trump’s margins in the general election. “I think the progressive Trump haters will come out strong, but not as strong as 2020.”

Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador under Trump, ended her run as the last GOP alternative to her former boss, following a series of bruising defeats across the country on Super Tuesday, when 15 states voted.

Haley was Trump’s first significant rival when she entered the race in February 2023. She aggressively campaigned against him in recent months, warning her party about the vulnerabilities he could pose to a GOP win in November over President Joe Biden. Haley’s supporters kept backing her even when a path seemed impossible, cautioning of the chaos Trump could represent and the unprecedented situation of a presidential nominee facing 91 criminal indictments.

The writing had been on the wall for months, though, with the former president winning state after state and both Trump and Biden pivoting to a general election campaign against each other. And in Pennsylvania, all six congressional Republicans had already endorsed Trump.

» READ MORE: Trump and Biden are poised for a rematch in Pa. Here’s what’s changed since 2020.

“The general election officially begins today,” said Rep. Dan Meuser, who represents parts of Northeast Pennsylvania and who is part of Trump’s Pennsylvania Leadership Team. “… Super Tuesday made clear that Donald Trump is the best candidate to beat Joe Biden in November. This is a unifying moment, and it’s time we come together.”

Kudos also came in from Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick, who was not endorsed by Trump in his 2022 bid.

“Congratulations to President Trump on his victory,” McCormick wrote on the social media platform X. “He has my strong endorsement and I look forward to him trouncing Joe Biden in PA and beyond on November 5. I’m excited to work with the President and his team to retire Biden and Bob Casey and get our country back on track!”

Biden has been preparing for a rematch with Trump since early in the campaign and made a direct appeal to Haley’s supporters to join him in the general election.

“Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Nikki Haley’s supporters,” Biden said in a statement. “I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign. I know there is a lot we won’t agree on. But on the fundamental issues of preserving American democracy, on standing up for the rule of law, on treating each other with decency and dignity and respect, on preserving NATO and standing up to America’s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground.”

The primary near-sweep (Haley won Vermont and Washington, D.C., where few delegates were up for grabs) means Pennsylvania’s already late and often irrelevant presidential primary contest will be even sleepier, though there are contested primary races for attorney general and some congressional seats.

Haley received between 25% and 40% of the vote in primary states. Some of those supporters are voters Trump will need to appeal to in a general election in Pennsylvania, said Larry Ceisler, a public affairs consultant in Philadelphia.

“There are a lot of Republicans who do not like Trump, and you have to believe a certain percentage of those are either going to vote for Biden in a general or they’re not gonna vote, or they vote third party,” Ceisler said.

Montgomery County Commissioner Tom DiBello, a Republican in the suburban county who had not endorsed a candidate, said Wednesday he’ll be supporting “the Republican team for November 2024.”

While Trump’s rhetoric can be concerning to a lot of people, DiBello said, he likes his policies, including promises for a border wall. ”If President Trump called me today and asked for my advice, I’d tell him to focus on policies and what he’s done and what he will do, and not focus so much on all of the other negative rhetoric that sometimes he goes off on.”

Frank Agovino, the Delaware County GOP chair, said he hopes Haley can team up with Trump to bridge a gap with suburban female Republicans.

”I think she appeals to female voters in the Republican Party, and some of those that we’ve lost over the last couple of years, especially in Delaware County,” he said.

Republicans in parts of the state where Trump has substantial support had been saying for months that there was energy for a second Trump term. He narrowly leads in Biden in most polling here and in other swing states.

“I think honestly these [legal] cases have only made us more excited to help out President Trump,” said Sean Logue, the GOP chair in Washington County, in an interview last month about Trump’s appeal.

“If you talk to the consultants in Philadelphia about what’s gonna win an election, they’re gonna say you need to hammer a Republican on the abortion issue,” Logue said. “In Southwest Pennsylvania, the main issue is jobs, and Trump has been able to tap into blue-collar, working-class people by saying, ‘I’m gonna stick up for you. I’m gonna bring jobs home.’”

Walter Sprenkle, a retired arborist from Selinsgrove who saw Trump at an NRA convention in Harrisburg last month, called it “a given” then that Trump would be the nominee.

“People keep telling me no way is Trump gonna be president and I say you’re blind,” Sprenkle, 68, said.

“It’s all bogus to set the American people on a false narrative that Trump is not the person they want as a president. He is and he will be.”

Staff writer Aliya Schneider contributed to this article.