Nikki Haley wins Washington, D.C., Republican primary, in small symbolic boost
By Gram Slattery
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Presidential contender Nikki Haley won the Washington, D.C., Republican primary on Sunday, her first victory in the nominating process and a symbolic win for the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Edison Research said.
Haley, the only remaining challenger to Donald Trump in the race, won 62.9% of the vote, versus 33.2% captured by the former president.
She still faces near-impossible odds in her quest to win the Republican nomination to take on likely Democratic nominee President Joe Biden in November. Trump won the first eight nominating contests by significant margins before losing to Haley in America's capital city.
The former president is also expected to win almost all nominating contests going forward, opinion polls show.
Washington, D.C., is 100% urban and a relatively high proportion of residents hold a college degree. The core of Trump's base skews rural, and he is particularly strong in areas with low educational attainment.
The city also is home to a significant number of federal workers who Trump allies have pledged to fire en masse and replace with loyalists if he wins in November. Some categories of federal workers have seen an increase in death threats in recent years, and Trump often refers to the D.C. area as the «swamp.»
Haley will pick up 19 delegates from her win, a small portion of the 1,215 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
Her victory could inoculate her from criticisms that she is unable to win a single nominating contest, though some Republicans will see her popularity in Washington as a negative. Many party leaders — Trump included — portray the city as crime-infested and run by out-of-touch elites.
This is not the first time
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