Former President Donald Trump moved closer to clinching the Republican Party’s presidential nomination on Monday when he won the North Dakota Republican Caucus in what would make his ninth primary win after victories in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina, Wyoming, Missouri and Idaho.
Trump Wins North Dakota Caucus In Dominant Fashion https://t.co/ntN7J78SuC pic.twitter.com/Y0K1GG1Drn
— Daily Wire News (@DailyWireNews) March 5, 2024
The Associated Press called the race 20 minutes after the caucuses closed and projected a Trump win with only about 38% of the votes counted. At that point, Trump had scored 84.8% votes while his rival, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley had 14.6% votes.
In South Dakota, a candidate that wins up to 60% of the votes collects all the 29 delegates at stake. Hence, Trump won all of the delegates.
This puts Trump at 273 delegates while Haley has only 43 out of the 1.215 delegates needed to secure the nomination. Going into the week, Haley only had 22 delegates. However, on Sunday, she walked away with 19 delegates in Washington, D.C.’s primary in which she won with about 63% of the votes.
Despite the wide gap between her and Trump, Haley insisted on staying in the race until this week’s Super Tuesday, in which 865 would be up for grabs from 15 states in total including Alabama, Alaska, California, Maine, Colorado, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia and Massachusetts.
Even after her loss in South Carolina, where she served two terms as governor, she said she will not be quitting the race yet as she made herself the voice calling for the Republican Party to find a new path beyond Trump.
“I’m not giving up this fight when a majority of Americans disapprove of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” she said after her loss in South Carolina, in which Trump beat her with 59.85 votes while she had 39.5%.
“I said earlier this week that, no matter what happens in South Carolina, I would continue to run for president. I’m a woman of my word,” she added.
Haley has repeatedly called for the party to dump Trump, going as far as claiming that Trump actually hurts the party contrary to popular opinion.
During an interview with CNN right after the Michigan Republican primary, she called the GOP a sinking ship with a hole in it, positioning herself as the life raft.
“What I’m saying to my Republican Party family is, we’re in a ship with a hole in it and we can either go down with the ship and watch the country go socialist Left, or we can see that we need to take the life raft and move in a new direction,” she stated.
“Look at what’s happened in Michigan. You look back in 2012, Michigan was such a bright spot. I was there. They had just passed right to work. They were winning seats up and down the ticket. It was just a great time for Michigan. But ever since Donald Trump became president, they’ve lost the governor’s mansion; they’ve lost the state House; they’ve lost the state Senate. The same thing has happened in Minnesota. I was in Colorado earlier today, they haven’t had a Republican get over 45% statewide since Donald Trump was president in 2016. It is a pattern we continue to see,” she added.