Washington, D.C., Republican primary delivers Haley her first win ahead of Super Tuesday
Nikki Haley won her first GOP presidential nominating contest Sunday, notching a victory in the Washington, D.C., primary, NBC News projects.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley won her first GOP presidential nominating contest Sunday, notching a victory in the Washington, D.C., primary, NBC News projects — a win her campaign hopes will spark some momentum ahead of next week’s Super Tuesday contests.
Haley, who won the primary over former President Donald Trump, has for weeks pledged to stay in the race through Super Tuesday, when 15 states and American Samoa will hold nominating contests. Trump is dominating in nearly all of those states in most public polling and is expected to extend his commanding delegate lead.
Haley took 63% of the GOP primary vote to 33% for Trump. Just over 2,000 Washington Republicans cast ballots. Because Haley got more than half of the vote, she came away with the District's 19 delegates.
Washington’s moderate set of Republicans, many of whom work in politics or government, are seen as vastly different from those in other early states, like South Carolina and Iowa, which set up a scenario in which Haley had her first legitimate chance to notch a victory. Trump got just 14% of the vote in Washington’s 2016 primary.
And expectations for turnout were also low, which opened the door to a different scenario from every other contest so far because the margins were expected to be thin.
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