Due to dueling primaries and caucuses, Nikki Haley and Trump never faced off directly in the Southwest state.
Former US President Donald Trump easily won the Nevada caucuses, moving one step closer to winning the Republican nomination for the 2024 general election.
The result was not surprising, as Trump only faced front-runner Ryan Binkley in the caucuses. Trump's leading challenger, Nikki Haley, was absent from the event, accusing organizers of heavily skewing the vote in Trump's favor.
As of Friday, he had received more than 99 percent of the roughly 60,000 votes cast in his caucus.
“We are leading everyone,” Trump said in his victory speech in Las Vegas.
“Is there any way to call an election next Tuesday?” he added. “That's all I want.”
Mr. Trump has so far placed first in the first three states of the US primary season, where the two major political parties, the Republican and Democratic parties, decide which candidate to nominate as a presidential challenger.
Trump's victory would mean adding Nevada's 26 delegates to his tally. The candidate with the most delegates nationwide will be nominated as the party's nominee at the Republican National Convention in July.
The Republican candidate is scheduled to face President Joe Biden in the November general election. Biden currently faces no major challenges to the ticket from within his own party.
“Sealed, Purchased, Paid for.”
Still, Thursday's victory was largely hollowed out by Haley's absence, and Haley instead took part in a separate and purely symbolic primary vote in Nevada on Tuesday.
The duel incident occurred as a result of a clash between Republicans and state legislators.
In 2021, the Democratic-controlled state legislature passed a law requiring Nevada to hold primary voting similar to traditional elections. For decades, the Nevada Republican Party has held caucuses across the state, gatherings of registered Republicans to debate and choose candidates.
In protest of the new law, the state's Republican Party said it would continue to hold caucuses. The party has final say on how state delegates are allocated, and the nomination process will focus solely on caucuses.
Haley accused Republicans of caucusing to boost Trump. The caucuses typically select only the party's most committed members and are biased toward Trump.
Primaries tend to draw a broader swath of party voters, which may have benefited Ms. Haley. She previously denied that her caucus had been “locked down, bribed and paid for.”
He again criticized the process as “rigged” after Tuesday's vote fell short on the “none of these candidates” option.
Ignoring the results, she said her campaign was not taking the race seriously and told Fox News that she did not intend to “spend a day or a dollar in Nevada.”
to south carolina
The Republican primary will shift from Nevada to South Carolina, where Haley previously served as governor. Despite his local roots, Trump remains popular in the deeply conservative state.
A loss at South Carolina could be a harbinger of a bleak future for Haley.
Nevertheless, the future of the campaign remains uncertain as Trump faces four separate criminal charges.
Earlier this week, a federal appeals panel ruled that Trump can stand trial on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election results. He denied his claim that he would not be prosecuted.
Colorado and Maine also said they could not put Trump on their primary ballots, citing his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Colorado's disqualification argument for Trump. Lawyers for the state argued that Trump's actions amounted to insurrection and that he could not run for office under the U.S. Constitution.
