(Washington) Nikki Haley won the Republican primary in the District of Columbia. This is his first victory of the 2024 campaign.
His victory Sunday temporarily halts Donald Trump’s sweep in the race for the Republican nomination, although the former president is likely to pick up several hundred additional delegates in this week’s Super Tuesday elections.
Nikki Haley gets her hands on the 19 delegates from the District of Columbia.
Despite his first defeats, Mme Haley announced that she would stay in the race at least until these races were over. She declined to name the primaries she was sure she would win.
After last week’s loss in his home state of South Carolina, Mme Haley remained adamant that voters in the next states to vote deserved another option than Trump, despite his dominance in the campaign so far.
PHOTO JOEL PAGE, REUTERS
Nikki Haley was all smiles after her first victory in the race for the Republican nomination.
The Associated Press announced Nikki Haley’s victory Sunday evening after Washington Republican Party officials released the results. She won all 19 delegates at stake.
Washington is one of the most Democratic jurisdictions in the country, with just 23,000 registered Republicans in the city. Democrat Joe Biden won the district in the 2020 general election with 92% of the vote.
Trump issued a statement shortly after Haley’s victory, sarcastically congratulating her for being named “Queen of the Swamp by DC lobbyists and insiders who want to protect the failing status quo.”
Nikki Haley held a rally in the nation’s capital Friday before returning to North Carolina and a series of states holding Super Tuesday primaries. She joked to more than 100 supporters in a hotel ballroom: “Who says there aren’t Republicans in Washington, come on.” »
“We try to make sure we touch every hand we can and talk to every person,” Ms.me Haley.
As she delivered her usual campaign speech, criticizing Trump for running up the federal deficit, a rally attendee yelled, “He can’t win a general election.” This is madness. » Nikki Haley agreed with him by saying that she can prevent Joe Biden from getting a second term, but that Trump cannot.
While campaigning as an avowed conservative, Mme Haley has tended to perform better among more moderate and independent voters.
Four in ten of Nikki Haley’s supporters in the South Carolina Republican primary called themselves moderates, compared to 15% for Trump, according to AP VoteCast, a poll of more than 2,400 voters participating in the Republican primary in South Carolina, conducted by the University of Chicago for the Associated Press. On the other hand, eight in ten Trump supporters identified as conservative, compared to about half of M’s supporters.me Haley.
Trump won an uncontested primary in Washington during his 2020 reelection campaign, but placed a distant third four years earlier behind Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Rubio’s victory was one of only three in his unsuccessful 2016 bid. Other more centrist Republicans, including Mitt Romney and John McCain, won the city’s primaries in 2012 and 2008, en route to the nomination of the Republican Party.