Haley beats Trump for first time

Nikki Haley won her first Republican primary contest yesterday in a victory over Donald Trump in Washington DC.

The former South Carolina governor won the capital by 63% to Trump’s 33%, with around 2000 Republicans in Washington casting a ballot.

The win makes Haley the first woman to win a Republican primary in United States political history, and marks the victory of her bid for the nomination.

Her spokeswoman, Olivia Perez-Cubas, said: “It’s not surprising that Republicans closest to Washington dysfunction are rejecting Donald Trump and all his chaos.”

The Washington DC primary has far fewer voters than most states, and has an electorate of Republicans that are generally more moderate than the rest of the US.

In 2016’s primary, the last competitive race, Trump won just 16% of the vote there.

Trump has won 10 consecutive primaries, and is expected to win the contest by securing half of the total delegates in the next few weeks.

The former president’s campaign said Haley had been crowned “Queen of the swamp” – the derogatory nickname he has given to the city.

“The results in Washington DC reaffirm the object of President Trump’s campaign – he will drain the swamp and put America first,” said Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign press secretary.

“While Nikki has been soundly rejected throughout the rest of America, she was just crowned Queen of the Swamp by the lobbyists and DC insiders that want to protect the failed status quo.

“President Trump will fight for every American who is being let down by these very DC insiders and devastated by Joe Biden’s failures.”

Haley’s majority victory means she will receive all 19 of the capital’s delegates to the Republican National Convention in July. However, Trump is expected to have

received the 1234 delegates he requires across the country to win the contest by the end of March.

The result in Washington comes after Trump won delegates in Michigan, Missouri and Idaho at the weekend, setting him up for 15 more votes on “Super Tuesday”.

Haley is forecast to lose heavily, including in the two major states of California and Texas, raising further questions about the viability of her campaign.

Yesterday, Haley suggested she may not honour her pledge to support whoever wins the primary race. – Telegraph Group