On Monday, presidential hopeful Nikki Haley was the only candidate on the ballot in Nevada’s GOP primary… but she walked away humiliated.
Former President Donald Trump did not compete, but Haley received only 33 percent of the vote despite being the biggest name on the ballot.
“None of these candidates,” an option first introduced 49 years ago in 1975, won the state’s presidential primary for the first time ever with 60 percent of the vote.
By contrast, President Joe Biden won 89 percent of the vote in the state’s Democratic primary Monday. “None of these candidates” received only six percent of the vote in the Democrats’ contest. Self-help author Marianne Williamson received three percent, and Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips — a longshot candidate — did not compete.
Before Monday, “none of these candidates” had won two congressional primaries… but never a presidential primary.
This year, Nevada is hosting both a Republican primary and a Republican caucus, following a dispute between the Nevada GOP and the Nevada State Department. The state will award delegates to the caucus winner, not the primary winner.
Candidates could run in only one of the two races. Trump will compete in Thursday’s caucus. Meanwhile, Haley chose to compete in the race without delegates… and she managed to lose even this purely symbolic race.
“If your goal is to win the Republican nomination for president, you go where the delegates are,” Chris LaCivita, Trump’s campaign advisor, said in an interview before the primary. “It baffles me that Nikki Haley chose not to participate.”
Trump himself described Monday as “a bad night for Nikki Haley.”
Haley hasn’t campaigned in Nevada all month. Before Monday night, she was planning to “focus on the states that are fair.” She’s been campaigning in her home state of South Carolina, the site of the next primary.
She accused Nevada’s GOP of holding a caucus, instead of the traditional primary, specifically to benefit Trump. Other candidates, including former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, filed to run in Nevada’s primary, too.
“Even Donald Trump knows that when you play penny slots the house wins,” Olivia Perez-Cubas, Haley’s campaign spokesperson, said in a statement. “We didn’t bother to play a game rigged for Trump. We’re full steam ahead in South Carolina and beyond.”
Even before losing Nevada’s primary, Haley’s campaign has dealt with similar embarrassments during the primaries. She described the presidential primary as a “two-person race” despite finishing third in Iowa.
Not only did Haley finish third in Iowa’s “two-person race,” but she also just lost a one-person race… for the first time in Nevada history.
The Horn editorial team