By Meg Kinnard and Will Weissert, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nikki Haley has received the Republican main within the District of Columbia, notching her first victory of the 2024 marketing campaign.
Her victory Sunday at the least briefly halts Donald Trump’s sweep of the GOP voting contests, though the previous president is certain to select up a number of hundred extra delegates on this week’s Super Tuesday races.
Despite her early losses, Haley has mentioned she would stay within the race at the least via these contests, though she has declined to call any main she felt assured she would win. Following final week’s loss in her house state of South Carolina, Haley remained adamant that voters within the locations that adopted deserved a substitute for Trump regardless of his dominance to date within the marketing campaign.
The Associated Press declared Haley the winner Sunday night time after D.C. Republican Party officers launched the outcomes. She received all 19 delegates at stake.
Washington is among the most closely Democratic jurisdictions within the nation, with solely about 23,000 registered Republicans within the metropolis. Democrat Joe Biden received the district within the 2020 basic election with 92% of the vote.
Trump issued an announcement shortly after Haley’s victory sarcastically congratulating her on being named “Queen of the Swamp by the lobbyists and DC insiders that want to protect the failed status quo.”
Haley held a rally within the nation’s capital on Friday earlier than heading again to North Carolina and a collection of states holding Super Tuesday primaries. She joked with greater than 100 supporters inside a lodge ballroom, “Who says there’s no Republicans in D.C., come on.”
“We’re trying to make sure that we touch every hand that we can and speak to every person,” Haley mentioned.
As she gave her normal marketing campaign speech, criticizing Trump for working up federal deficit, one rallygoer bellowed, “He cannot win a general election. It’s madness.” That prompted settlement from Haley, who argues that she will deny Biden a second time period however Trump received’t be capable of.
While campaigning as an avowed conservative, Haley has tended to carry out higher amongst extra reasonable and independent-leaning voters.
Four in 10 Haley supporters in South Carolina’s GOP main have been self-described moderates, in contrast with 15% for Trump, in response to AP VoteCast, a survey of greater than 2,400 voters participating within the Republican main in South Carolina, performed for AP by NORC on the University of Chicago. On the opposite hand, 8 in 10 Trump supporters recognized as conservatives, in comparison with about half of Haley’s backers.
Trump received an uncontested D.C. main throughout his 2020 reelection bid however positioned a distant third 4 years earlier behind Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Rubio’s win was one in every of solely three in his unsuccessful 2016 bid. Other extra centrist Republicans, together with Mitt Romney and John McCain, received the town’s primaries in 2012 and 2008 on their solution to successful the GOP nomination.
Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”