1 In 5 Indiana Republican Primary Voters Just Voted For Someone Other Than Trump

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The ghost of Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign is ringing up significant support in state primaries despite her withdrawal from the race in March shortly before Donald Trump had clinched the Republican nomination.

The backing for Haley — most recently in Indiana, where she grabbed more than 21% of the votes on Tuesday — signals persistent discontent among party voters with the former president. He is racking up primary victories even as he has been spending much of his time recently in a New York courtroom facing state criminal charges involving hush money payments to a porn actor.

Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador who qualified for the Indiana ballot before she dropped out two months ago, has not endorsed Trump.

A Haley campaign adviser did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the results.

Indiana Democrats did not have the option to vote “ uncommitted ” in their party primary. Unease about President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war has sparked a protest vote movement in some states, raising similar questions about the strength of his support in November.

Haley’s support was largest in Indiana’s urban and suburban counties. She won 35% of the vote in Indianapolis’s Marion County and more than one-third of the vote in suburban Hamilton County. As in other states, she did best in the most Democratic areas of the state.

The exception was Lake County, home to Gary, just south of Chicago. Haley won only 14% of the vote in Lake County.

Biden’s campaign attributed Haley’s Indiana showing to Trump’s trouble in suburbs and cited similar primary numbers in swing states such as Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The president has made an open appeal to