GOP voters in Nevada sent a message to presidential candidate Nikki Haley in yesterday’s primary election: We want Trump.
She lost to Nobody, meaning “none of these candidates,” and by a big margin.
And because the Silver State doesn’t award delegates in the primary but instead at a caucus that will be held tomorrow, Trump will almost certainly get all the state’s delegates.
Worse still, Haley is behind Trump by almost 60 points in the Real Clear Politics average of polls.
Embarrassing Defeat
The crushing defeat in the no-delegate primary is a major embarrassment for the former South Carolina governor, who continues pretending she can defeat Trump.
“She became the first presidential candidate from either party to lose a race to “none of these candidates” since that option was introduced in Nevada in 1975,” The Associated Press reported.
As well, Haley wasn’t even close. She lost by 22,694 votes. “None of these candidates” received 43,893 votes, or 63.21 percent, to Haley’s 21,199, or 30.53 percent.
But Haley, AP reported, remains unmoved. The primary wasn’t fair. “Even Donald Trump knows that when you play penny slots the house wins,” said spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas. “We didn’t bother to play a game rigged for Trump. We’re full steam ahead in South Carolina and beyond.”
“Watch, she’ll soon claim Victory!” Trump joked at Haley’s expense.
Truth be told, Haley didn’t stand a chance, AP reported:
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, had announced beforehand that he would vote for “none of these candidates” on Tuesday. Several Republicans interviewed heading to the polls said they intended to do the same.
Washoe County Republican Party Chair Bruce Parks, who pushed for the GOP to hold caucuses, said that he told voters who called his office — and Trump supporters — to participate in the primary by voting for “none of these candidates” over Haley.
“They basically told us they don’t care about us,” Parks said in an interview after the race was called. “By marking ‘none of these candidates,’ we respond in kind — we don’t care about you either.”
Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald, a Trump ally who faces state charges for serving as a so-called “fake elector” on the former president’s behalf, said he left it to each county GOP chairman to decide if they wanted to promote “none of these candidates.” He said Haley’s seeming disrespect of Nevada voters was “reciprocated” with the results.
Tomorrow, however, will be worse. That’s when Trump will likely win all the states’ 26 delegates.
The Polls
The polls don’t look good for Haley. Voters aren’t quite as optimistic about her candidacy as she is.
The Real Clear Politics average of GOP primary polls puts Trump at 74.4 points to Haley’s 18.1, a seemingly insurmountable 54.1-point lead.
Worse still for the former UN ambassador, Haley is losing, and losing badly, in her home state of South Carolina.
Trump leads by 30.7 points there, 60-29.3.
Fifty delegates are up for grabs in the Palmetto State: 29 delegates will go to the candidate who gets the most votes statewide. Each of the state’s seven congressional districts get three of the remaining 21.
Trump’s popularity suggests he could win all 50, a defeat that would almost certainly persuade Haley the time had come to bail out before any more embarrassing losses.
As The Wall Street Journal reported, South Carolina might be Haley’s last stand:
South Carolina could instead be where her campaign essentially dies, if Haley doesn’t show significant growth in coming weeks. She has set herself a benchmark in the Feb. 24 primary of 43%. That was her vote share in last month’s New Hampshire’s primary, and Haley has said she needs to keep growing her proportion in subsequent contests.…
A Trump victory in South Carolina would be another milestone in his march to the nomination. Since 1980, the winner of the state’s primary has gone on to become the eventual GOP nominee with only one exception. Newt Gingrich, from neighboring Georgia, beat eventual nominee Mitt Romney in 2012.
The delegate count is 33 for Trump and 17 for Haley. After tomorrow, Trump will likely have 59 delegates because, again, he will likely win all of Nevada’s 26.
As for how the two measure up against a contest with Biden in November, both are ahead, although the RCP average shows Haley with a surprisingly larger lead.
She leads Biden by 43.3-39.7, or 3.6 points. Trump is only 1.7 points ahead of Biden, 45.8-44.1.
Better news for Trump comes from the RCP average in the key battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
Trump is ahead of Biden in all of them except Pennsylvania. In North Carolina, Trump leads Biden 49-39, and Nevada, 49-42. Biden barely leads in Pennsylvania.
Those states offer 93 electoral votes, 34 percent of those needed to win. If Trump wins all those states, and keeps those that are red or trending red, Trump will defeat Biden 312-226. But that is unlikely.
If Trump loses Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, he must win Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, and North Carolina to beat Biden 272-266.
Trump still wins 278-260 if he loses Michigan and Pennsylvania and wins the rest.
