WASHINGTON – Nikki Haley on Sunday defeated Donald Trump in the GOP presidential primary in Washington, D.C., her first win against the former president.
It’s a relatively tiny victory, one Trump will almost certainly use to portray Haley as a creature of the D.C. swamp. D.C.’s 19 delegates will now cast their votes for her at the Republican National Convention in July. That’s out of 2,429 delegates, and so far, Trump has trounced her in all of the other state GOP primaries.
Right on cue, shortly after Haley’s win was announced, Trump’s campaign said her victory means “the swamp has claimed their queen.”
“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,” Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for Trump’s campaign, said in a statement.
Trump has a total of 244 delegates and Haley now has 43. Whoever is first to hit 1,215 delegates will be the Republican presidential nominee. Trump is expected to get much closer following this week’s Super Tuesday primaries, where polls show him dominating from coast to coast.
But Haley’s win counts for something. For starters, unbelievably, she is now the first woman to ever win a Republican presidential primary.
Her ability to defeat Trump in any primary means he can’t celebrate a clean sweep, which, as petty as it sounds, is almost certainly going to infuriate him and delight his critics. And for Haley’s supporters in D.C., it’s a sign that there’s enough of them, even if in this small election, to send the message that they reject the MAGA grip on their party.
“It matters for her to win in D.C. because I think it’s going to frustrate Trump more and more,” said Cherry, 66, who was one of about 250 people at a Haley campaign event in D.C. on Friday afternoon. She asked to use her first name only.
“I’ve never hated a politician, but I hate Donald Trump,” she…
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