Former President Donald Trump easily defeated his former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on Super Tuesday in every state except Vermont, all but guaranteeing him the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.
Fifteen states nationwide held primaries on Tuesday, amounting to more than a third of the overall GOP primary delegate count. And while each state apportions its delegates differently — some allotting all to the winner while other states tie it to county or other performance metrics — by night’s end, Trump was on pace to win almost all of them.
The Republican former president was surprisingly unable to beat Haley in Vermont on Super Tuesday. As a result, Haley and her campaign gained 17 delegates to her small current total.
Utah remains too close to call and polls in Alaska haven’t closed yet, but Trump won every other contest Tuesday, including the delegate-rich California. Trump’s current delegate total stands at 911; Haley has 78.
Trump has not yet amassed a majority of all the GOP delegates needed to become the party’s presumptive nominee ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. As it stands, Haley can still win the nomination, though it’d require handily defeating Trump in state after state, surpassing polling.
As Business Insider noted in December 2023, Trump has long appeared to have an edge at re-earning the party’s nomination after state party leaders tweaked delegate allocation rules.
At the end of January, Haley said she couldn’t predict her campaign’s plans after Super Tuesday.
“As long as I keep growing per state, I am in this race,” Haley told NBC’s Kristen Welker. “I have every intention of going to Super Tuesday. Through Super Tuesday, we’re going to keep on going and see where this gets us. That’s what we know we’re going to do right now. I take it one state at a time. I don’t think too far ahead.”
Despite her win in Vermont, Haley did not give a speech Tuesday evening, while Trump gave one from Mar-a-Lago without mentioning her name once.
