Idaho Republicans planned to caucus later. His last major Republican rival, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, is still seeking her first election-season win.
There were no Democratic contests Saturday.
The next event on the Republican calendar is Sunday in the District of Columbia. Two days later is Super Tuesday, when 16 states and American Samoa will hold primaries on what will be the largest day of voting of the year outside of the November election. Trump is on track to lock up the nomination days later.
Michigan
Michigan Republicans at their convention in Grand Rapids began allocating 39 of the state’s 55 GOP presidential delegates. Trump won all 39 delegates allocated.
But a significant portion of the party’s grassroots force was skipping the gathering because of the lingering effects of a months-long dispute over the party’s leadership.
Trump handily won Michigan’s primary Tuesday with 68% of the vote compared with Haley’s 27%.
Michigan Republicans were forced to split their delegate allocation into two parts after Democrats, who control the state government, moved Michigan into the early-primary states, violating the national Republican Party’s rules.
Missouri
Voters lined up outside a church in Columbia, home to the University of Missouri, before the doors opened for the caucuses. Once they got inside, they heard appeals from supporters of the candidates.
“Every 100 days, we’re spending $1 trillion, with money going all over the world. Illegals are running across the border,” Tom Mendenall, an elector for Trump in 2016 and 2020, said to the crowd. He later added: “You know where Donald Trump stands on a lot of these issues.”
Seth Christensen, a 31-year-old from Columbia who came to the caucus with his wife and three children age 7, 5 and 2, then urged Republicans to go in a new direction.
“I don’t need to hear about Mr. Trump’s dalliances with people of unsavory character, nor do my children,” Christensen said to the room. “And if we put that man in the office, that’s what we’re going to hear about all the time. And I’m through with it.”
Supporters quickly moved to one side of the room or the other, depending on whether they favored Trump or Haley. There was little discussion between caucusgoers after they chose a side.
This year was the first test of the new system, which is almost entirely run by volunteers on the Republican side.
The caucuses were organized after GOP Gov. Mike Parson signed a 2022 law that, among other things, canceled the planned March 12 presidential primary.
Lawmakers failed to reinstate the primary despite calls to do so by state Republican and Democratic Party leaders. Democrats will hold a party-run primary March 23.
Trump prevailed twice under Missouri’s old presidential primary system.
Idaho
Last year, Idaho lawmakers passed cost-cutting legislation that was intended to move all the state’s primaries to the same date in May. But the bill inadvertently eliminated the presidential primaries entirely.
The Republican-led Legislature considered holding a special session to reinstate the presidential primaries but failed to agree on a proposal in time, leaving both parties with presidential caucuses as the only option. The Democratic caucuses are May 23.
The last GOP caucuses in Idaho were in 2012, when about 40,000 of the state’s nearly 200,000 registered Republican voters showed up to select their preferred candidate.
All Republican voters who want to participate will have to attend in person. They will vote after hearing short speeches by the candidates or their representatives.
The Idaho GOP will announce the results once all the votes are counted statewide. Trump placed a distant second in the 2016 Idaho primary behind Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
Cooper is a reporter with the Associated Press. AP writers Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho; Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Mich.; and Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Mo., contributed to this report.