Nikki Haley faced no primary challenger in Tuesday’s Nevada presidential election.
According to NBC News projections, he still lost.
In the state’s primary election, Nevada voters had the option of rejecting all the candidates on the ballot, and they did — with more people choosing to vote for “none of these candidates” than for Haley.
It was a scathing rebuke from former US ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina governor Haley – and some party leaders had encouraged. The result in Nevada was Haley’s third straight loss in an early state primary contest.
Still, Haley’s campaign indicated the results won’t affect how long she stays in the race.
“Even Donald Trump knows that when you play penny slots, the house wins. We didn’t hesitate to play a rigged game for Trump. We’re right up front in South Carolina and beyond,” spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said.
Former President Donald Trump is the front-runner for the Republican Party nomination. it was not on the same ballot As is Haley, as she is set to compete in the party-controlled caucuses on Thursday.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said it was a “Bad night for Nikki Haley.”
Even if Haley had won the primary, it wouldn’t have gotten her any closer to the GOP nomination because she wouldn’t have won any delegates. The state Republican Party has decided that only candidates who participate in caucuses can win delegates.
Trump is the only candidate to participate in Thursday’s caucuses, putting him on track to claim all 26 of Nevada’s delegates.
However, Haley was poised to draw some positive headlines if she won more overall votes in the primaries than Trump did in the caucuses, a potential bang for the buck. But in the end, his lack of investment in the state showed itself. Haley has only visited the state once since May and repeatedly played it down.
Haley said she decided not to run in the caucuses because she believes the Nevada Republican Party is in the tank for Trump. Top party leaders were charged for allegedly impersonating Trump voters in the 2020 race. State GOP Chairman Michael McDonald’s and Vice Chairman Jim DeGraffenreid’s cell phones were seized and both testified before a grand jury In the federal investigation into Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
“We haven’t spent a dime or an ounce of energy in Nevada,” Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney said on a Monday media call. “We will not pay $55,000 to the Trump Organization to participate in the falsified process for Trump. “Nevada is not our focus and never has been.”
Hailey took second place New Hampshire and the third Iowa. He is is far behind Trump in the polls in the next early state on the calendar, his home state of South Carolina, but his campaign insists he still has a path to the nomination. Haley said if her goal is to continue, It is to do better in South Carolina on February 24, he received 43% of the vote from New Hampshire.
Double-barreled nomination races in Nevada created confusion among votersthousands of people called state officials and local party leaders to ask why Trump was not on the primary ballot they received in the mail.
Nevada once used only caucuses for presidential elections. But in 2021, the Democratic-led Legislature changed the law so that the state instead held a primary election that included early voting and the option to vote by mail. The Nevada GOP has insisted on holding caucuses other than state elections, saying it wants to manage its own competition using its own rules. The party dictated that candidates were not allowed to compete in both elections and that only those running in caucuses could win delegates.
Haley he was not alone in bypassing the caucuses. Former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina also filed to run in the state’s GOP primary before dropping out. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ former campaign and the super PAC that supports him complained that the Nevada GOP was biased against Trump, but he chose to run just before last month’s New Hampshire primary.