image source, Getty Images
Nikki Haley has vowed to move forward with her White House campaign after suffering a humiliating defeat in Nevada's Republican primary.
Despite facing no competition in the absence of Donald Trump, she received significantly fewer votes than “None of These Candidates” on Tuesday.
Nevada's governor insisted on voting this way in protest because Haley will be absent from Thursday's caucus.
Meanwhile, Trump is closing in on winning the party's presidential nomination.
The fact that there are two contests is the result of a dispute between Republicans and Democrats in the state Legislature.
Congress passed legislation to switch from caucuses to primaries in 2021 after delayed voting in 2020.
While caucuses are votes that require you to be present in person at a specific time, primaries are conducted in the normal way through early voting, which takes several hours at a polling place.
Nevada election officials said Haley won just 31% of the vote in Tuesday's race, far behind the 63% of votes cast for “none of these candidates.”
But the contest is not legally binding because Republicans have disavowed it.
image source, Getty Images
After the defeat, Ms Haley criticized the party on X (formerly Twitter).
“Republicans are doing the same thing over and over again, producing the same result: chaos,” she wrote. “That's the definition of insanity.”
He has faced three challenges this week, including news that his party's chairman offered to resign in a meeting with Trump, the party's inability to pass legislation in the House of Representatives, and a court's finding that Trump lacks immunity from prosecution. He cited two major developments. .
“A vote for Trump is a vote for more chaos,” she wrote.
Haley did not campaign in Nevada, instead choosing to focus on her home state of South Carolina, where voting will take place in just over two weeks. Her team wasn't daunted by Nevada's results.
“Even Donald Trump knows that if you play penny slots, you win the House of Representatives,” said Haley campaign spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas. “We go out of our way to play a game designed for Trump. I didn't care,” he said.
“We are also fully committed to South Carolina and beyond.”
But a source close to Ms Haley told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the outcome in Nevada was an “embarrassing situation”.
The Trump campaign mocked her loss.
“It has been a long time since the political world suffered a defeat as humiliating, embarrassing and absolutely crushing as Nikki Haley suffered yesterday in Nevada,” spokesman Stephen Chan said in a statement.
All 26 of the state's delegates who contribute to the nomination are being contested in the party caucuses.
Therefore, a victory for “any of these candidates” in the primary would have no official impact on the race.
However, the fact that she effectively lost votes due to the backlash against Haley reflects Trump's strength.
The New York Times reported that Haley could be declared the winner by the Secretary of State's office even if only the nominated candidates were counted.
The Republican nominee is almost certainly Trump, who will likely face President Joe Biden in the November election.
Biden won Nevada's Democratic primary on Tuesday.
