Well, chalk up one win for Nikki Haley in the 2024 Republican primary contest. The former South Carolina governor, who couldn’t win her own state, has managed to collect the delegates of Washington D.C.

Let’s face it, D.C. isn’t exactly a hotbed of Trump supporters.

Haley defeated Donald Trump in the Washington, D.C. Republican primary, a contest that took place over the weekend in a downtown hotel just steps away from the heart of D.C.’s lobbying hub. Haley carried nearly 63 percent of the vote, according to D.C. party officials.

But the GOP electorate in D.C. — where Republicans make up just 5 percent of registered voters — is hardly representative of the conservative base found in most other parts of the country.

Voting in the primary ran over three days at the Madison Hotel, and Haley herself held a campaign rally there on Friday. Among Haley’s supporters on Friday was Dana Milbank, a longtime Washington Post columnist who said he had been a Republican for just a few weeks — when he changed his voter registration in time to cast a vote in the weekend primary.

It was part of an experiment for a piece he’s working on in which Milbank has engaged in activities he said appeal to Republican voters — such as, in his explanation, watching NASCAR races, going to a Hobby Lobby and visiting a gun show.

“I’ve always been a RINO,” Milbank said, when asked how it felt to be a part of the D.C. GOP establishment. “So I feel like I fit right in.”

But the typical behavior of a Republican living in the nation’s capital is vastly different from a Republican outside of the district. And even those who showed up to vote for her said that they were a unicorn breed in their own party.

“This is a more moderate area,” said Dennis Paul, a retiree who has been a registered D.C. Republican his entire adult life. “And I think people here think a little bit more rationally.”

A win is a win, and Team Haley is certain to milk it for all it is worth. After all, she’s the first woman to win a Republican primary race, as her supporters were happy to point out (and her Twitter/X account was happy to retweet). Haley thanked her supporters via Twitter/X while she rallied in Maine before Super Tuesday. Her supporters are really riding high after this win.
https://twitter.com/KRobbinsMN/status/1764468855311598006
I’m not sure if a single primary win in Washington D.C. can be considered “momentum,” considering that Nikki Haley lost three caucuses on Saturday to Donald Trump.

Trump notched victories in the Missouri and Idaho caucuses, and also gained the 39 delegates available at Michigan’s convention caucuses.

The two will face off Monday night in the North Dakota caucuses, and then in the numerous elections being held Tuesday, which is known as Super Tuesday, where over 800 delegates will be in play. Despite her victory Sunday, Haley remains far behind Trump in the race for the Republican nomination.

While caucuses are party-run gatherings, not popular votes within a state, they still award delegates – something which Haley is still very behind in collecting. After the Washington D.C. primary and gaining its 19 delegates, Haley now has 43 delegates to Trump’s 244. Haley was already becoming more and more of a longshot, looking to stay in the race just in case something bad happened. However, she’s now in the process of making herself radioactive to the base.

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley says she no longer feels bound by a pledge made to the RNC to support the GOP presidential nominee. ⁠ pic.twitter.com/zLiYTyuZ96

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) March 3, 2024

But as Jazz Shaw points out on Hot Air, the longer this goes on, the more certain it becomes that Haley’s political future looks dim.

I’m sure that Nikki Haley has no interest in hiring me as her campaign strategist and it’s probably too late anyway. But it really didn’t have to be this way. Even if Haley had no intention of dropping out (and still doesn’t seem to thus far) and wanted to hang around as long as her big-money donors kept her coffers full, there was a better way to position herself. If I were in the hypothetical position of advising her, allow me to queue up a proposal of the approach she should have taken.

“I offered the voters an alternative, but it’s clear that the base has made its choice. And yet, this is an uncertain situation. Given the frontrunner’s age and pending legal issues, things may not go as expected. And while I’m suspending my campaign, I will stand by and be available to lead the party to victory if he is unavailable.”

That’s all it would have taken. It’s really that simple, and I think she would have regained a significant amount of respect from the base, including Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters. She might have even improved her prospects for a potential comeback tour in 2028. But those prospects are currently sinking like a stone.

Nikki Haley could have been that backup plan, but she seems to be rapidly burning her bridges behind her. That’s okay though, because there are other backups available that are all fine choices. Senator Tim Scott and Flordia Governor Ron DeSantis also technically suspended their campaigns rather than officially ending them. Either or both could restart their campaign and make a pitch for themselves to be the knight riding to the rescue. Unfortunately for Nikki Haley, if she keeps up her current antics much longer, her stallion will likely be left in the stables.

If the unthinkable hypothetical does happen and Donald Trump is unable to continue a run for president, Haley may have alienated enough of the GOP base that they would not automatically pivot to support her. And it is definitely likely that other candidates would jump back in. One primary win in Washington D.C. is not going to be enough to convince Republican voters to support Nikki Haley if Donald Trump is unavailable.

Super Tuesday is going to be filled with “winner take all” states – which means if Nikki Haley doesn’t win, then she doesn’t get any delegates. She still has some donors hanging on for the principle of the thing, but how long will they last if Super Tuesday ends up being a massive loss for her campaign? Not very long, I’ll bet. Washington D.C.’s primary may very well end up being Nikki Haley’s political swan song.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click