Nikki Haley wins her first victory against Trump in testimonial Washington primaries USA election

The capital of the United States has always been hostile territory for Donald Trump. Joe Biden won the 2020 election against the incumbent with 92% of the vote. In general, the District of Columbia is distinctly blue, the color of the Democrats. The Republican Party held its presidential primaries this Sunday in a single polling center, a room at the Madison Hotel in downtown Washington. With a low turnout, Nikki Haley has scored her first — and who knows what — victory against Trump, a rather symbolic victory, but one that gives her some oxygen. Haley received 63% of the vote, but only 1,274 votes. Trump, while he received only 676 votes in the capital, 33%.

In a city of about 700,000 residents, there are only 23,000 registered Republican voters. Although voting by mail is not allowed, this Sunday, attendance at the Madison Hotel was low. By noon, only a few dozen voters had cast their ballots. At the door, a woman was handing out leaflets in support of David Stuckenberg, a businessman and former military pilot who almost no one knows is in the presidential race and who received 8 votes. Another, dressed in some sort of red tracksuit and Trump cap, sat in a folding chair looking at her cell phone. At a table, already inside, two volunteers from Nikki Haley’s campaign were handing out stickers (or, at least, they had stickers to give out, but less demand) for the winner.

The District of Columbia primaries award only 19 delegates to the Republican convention. This Saturday, Trump won 122 (all of those who were elected). Caucus 874 Republican delegates from Idaho, Missouri and Michigan and 15 states are at stake on Tuesday (Super Tuesday). For this reason, primary schools in the capital generally receive little attention. There isn’t even a survey.

However, the District of Columbia is the district where the highest proportion of delegates (or voters) are awarded to Republicans, as the distribution takes population into account. In South Carolina, Haley won only three delegates with 300,000 votes. In Washington he carried 19 with less than 1,300 votes. Republican primaries are closed in the capital, so only 23,000 members can vote. Furthermore, participation is usually very low. This time just over 2,000 votes were cast. In 2020, there were 1,559 votes; In 2016, only 2,839 votes were cast; In 2020, about 5,300, and in 2008, about 6,200. Obviously, they do not serve to set trends.

Voting began this Friday in the capital and Nikki Haley held a rally that day in another room of the same hotel. He joked to more than a hundred supporters: “Who says there aren’t any Republicans in Washington?” This Sunday, however, the candidates did not even bother to stay in the city to wait for the results. Nikki Haley chose to campaign in the voting states on Tuesday, while Trump chose to rest after Saturday’s rallies, in which he made numerous slips, disconnected phrases and mistakes, including again saying that President Barack Obama is.

Republican rules establish that the candidate who receives more than 50% of the vote in the primary is awarded 19 delegates. If no candidate receives more than half of the votes, they are allocated proportionally among the candidates who exceed the 15% threshold. But in practice, since there are only two candidates, the possibility of proportional distribution can only be the result of chance. There are a handful of votes for candidates like Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy who have withdrawn but were still on the ballot.

Trump won the Washington primary uncontested in his bid for re-election in 2020. Instead, four years ago he came in third behind Florida Senator Marco Rubio and former Ohio Governor John Kasich. He got only 13.8% of the votes and was also left without delegates on that occasion. Rubio’s win was one of three in a failed 2016 bid. Previously, Mitt Romney and John McCain won the city’s primaries for the Republican Party nomination in 2012 and 2008.

The former president practically shows no love in the capital. It’s a city he vilifies at every opportunity, in a game that many other American politicians also play. The Trump campaign released a statement shortly after Haley’s victory calling her the “Queen of the Swamp by DC lobbyists and insiders who want to protect the failed status quo.” Republicans call Washington a “swamp,” taking advantage of the fact that it’s partly built on wetlands, but referring to its shady activities.

Haley’s campaign turned the argument on its head: “It’s no surprise that the Republicans closest to Washington’s inaction reject Donald Trump and all his anarchy,” a Haley spokesman said in a statement reported by the AP. Haley, Olivia Perez-Cubas, who remembered. Kay Haley became the first woman in history to win a Republican primary.

The Republican nomination race has another uneventful stop at the North Dakota caucuses this Monday, where 29 delegates have been awarded and Trump is expected to sweep. And then comes Super Tuesday, where Trump will attest, according to all the polls, that the gap he maintains with Haley despite Washington’s laudable victory is unbridgeable.

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