Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday blasted the third GOP primary debate and bragged about dominating his 2024 rivals and President Joe Biden in recent national surveys at a campaign rally in Hialeah, Florida.
Trump specifically referenced polls from the New York Times-Siena College that showed him beating Biden in five out of six key battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Another CNN poll this week showed Trump leading his GOP competitors at 61% to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) 17% and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s 10%.
REPUBLICAN DEBATE: RON DESANTIS FIGHTS ON HOME TURF TO HOLD OFF NIKKI HALEY THREAT
"In the primary, we're leading the field with an average of 61% for Trump, and you have about, what, seven or eight candidates left? I think they're at a debate tonight. Nobody's talking about it," Trump said at a rally being held at the same time as the debate.
Trump then mocked DeSantis and Haley with derogatory nicknames. "So it's 61% for your favorite president, me, and 10% for Ron DeSanctimonious and 7% for birdbrain. You know birdbrain?" he said.
"'I will never run against him. He is a great president. I will never ever run against him, said birdbrain. I will not run against him,'" Trump said, taunting Haley, who had claimed she wouldn't run against Trump for the presidency before she eventually launched her 2024 campaign.
Prior to the debate in Miami, several in the GOP field taunted Trump for skipping the debate, including DeSantis and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Trump pushed back against those accusations during his rally on Wednesday night.
"Somebody said, 'Oh,' — one of the dumber ones— 'He doesn't have the courage to stand up.' Well, listen, I'm standing in front of tens of thousands of people right now, and it's on television," said Trump. "That's a hell of a lot harder to do than a debate."
The crowd of enthusiastic Trump supporters chanted "USA! USA! USA!"
Despite Trump's checkered history with female voters, the former president bragged about the New York Times poll results among women and polling at 22% with black voters in six battleground states.
"It has us up by 10, 11 points and beating Biden everywhere with women, with everything," Trump said. "I always felt I did well with women because women want security. ... I'm winning with young people. I thought I'd do well with young people. Looking at people here, they're all young people."
Trump's comments come as voters in Ohio enshrined abortion rights into their state constitution, Virginia voters flipped control of the Assembly to Democratic control in a rebuke of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA), and Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) won his reelection bid in Tuesday's off-year elections.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The former president was attacked by his rivals for the disappointing losses on Tuesday. "In Florida, we have a culture of winning, leading, and delivering results. We showed that when we turned a swing state into a red state one year ago," DeSantis wrote in a post on Wednesday to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
"Outside of a few states, Republicans have consistently underperformed over the past few election cycles. The time for excuses is over," he continued. "Next November, with me as your nominee, we will defeat Joe Biden and END the culture of losing that has infected our party."