It’s still early, but former President Donald Trump could win every contest for the Republican presidential nomination — something that hasn’t been done by a non-incumbent presidential candidate in more than two decades.
This weekend, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley may have her best chance to prevent that.
So far, Trump has posted a 5-0 record against Haley in states with early primaries and caucuses, including Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan.
Current representative count stops Trump at 110, Haley at 20 – Idaho (Saturday), Washington, DC (with primary voting concluding Sunday), North Dakota (Monday) and more than a dozen primaries and caucuses (with contests looming on Super Tuesday ). In particular, Washington, where Trump won just 14% of the vote in the low-turnout 2016 primary, gives Haley a chance to win her first in 2024.
Marco Rubio won the district in 2016 with a political coalition similar to Haley’s at the time.
A pair of Super Tuesday states could also be an opportunity for Haley: Virginia (where she campaigned Thursday) and Massachusetts (where registered Republicans) fixed it less than half of voters in the 2016 GOP primary).
Otherwise, Trump is poised to run the GOP table, making the 2024 Republican race the least competitive presidential race since 2000.
It was the last time a non-incumbent candidate went undefeated in the primaries and caucuses in all 50 states, including the District of Columbia, when then-Vice President Al Gore did so.
The closest Democratic challenger Bill Bradley came to Gore was in the 2000 New Hampshire primary, which he lost by a few percentage points.
In 2004, Democrat John Kerry easily won his party’s nomination after victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, but he lost North Carolina and South Carolina to John Edwards (from the Tar Heel State), Wesley Clark in Oklahoma, and Vermont. home state favorite Howard Dean, ex-Gov.
In 2008, GOP finalist John McCain won early primaries and caucuses against Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, while Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton battled to the bottom of that era’s Democratic race.
In 2012, Romney lost races against Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich before securing the GOP presidential nomination.
And in 2016 and 2020, candidates Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden lost their fair share of primaries and caucuses to their opponents.