Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley won the Republican primary in Washington, D.C., her first win of a cycle where she is an undisputed underdog to former President Donald Trump.
Haley received 62.8% support to Trump’s 33.3%, with 99% of votes counted by 8:48 p.m., according to the Associated Press.
Haley’s campaign released a short statement following the victory. “It’s not surprising that Republicans closest to Washington dysfunction are rejecting Donald Trump and all his chaos,” spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said, adding that Haley is the first woman in U.S. history to win a Republican primary.
Trump’s campaign had a different reaction to the results, also pointing out the location as they said Haley was “Crowned Queen of the Swamp.”
“Tonight’s results in Washington D.C. reaffirm the object of President Trump’s campaign — he will drain the swamp and put America first,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign press secretary, said. “While Nikki has been soundly rejected throughout the rest of America, she was just crowned Queen of the Swamp by the lobbyists and DC insiders that want to protect the failed status quo.”
“The swamp has claimed their queen. President Trump will fight for every American who is being let down by these very DC insiders and devastated by Joe Biden’s failures,” she concluded.
Republicans in Washington, D.C., decided 19 delegates in Trump and Haley’s race to 1,215 and the 2024 nomination. Idaho, Michigan, and Missouri Republicans also voted this weekend before their GOP counterparts in North Dakota on Monday. and those in 15 other states on Tuesday, known as Super Tuesday.
Before polls closed in D.C. at 8 p.m., Trump had 247 delegates to Haley’s 24. But Haley spent Sunday morning on TV and the afternoon campaigning in Maine and Vermont, making her case to Republicans in those more liberal-leaning Super Tuesday states. Almost 900 Republican delegates will be determined on Tuesday.
“As long as we are competitive, as long as we are showing that there is a place for us, I’m going to continue to fight,” Haley told NBC Sunday. “If the people want to see me go forward, they’ll show it. They’ll show it in their votes. They’ll show it in their donations.”
What Haley considers “competitive” has morphed somewhat since New Hampshire in January, where she received 43% support to Trump’s 54%, the former president winning by only 36,000 votes. In South Carolina last weekend, she earned 39.5% to Trump’s 60%. Days later, in Michigan, she had 27% to Trump’s 68%.
“This is about really trying to get everyone to realize that this primary isn’t between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley,” Haley said on Sunday, part of an effort to differentiate herself from Trump critics, despite her recent harsher criticism of the former president.
“Yes, on the ballot, that’s what you see,” she added. “This primary is, ‘What is the direction of the Republican Party?’”
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Haley is expected in Texas, a Super Tuesday state, on Monday. She spent last Thursday and Friday in Virginia and Washington, D.C., including at a Washington, D.C., Republican Party event for which attendees were charged an unusual entrance fee.
