Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley thinks she’s running in a two-way race. She’ll have to win far more than just New Hampshire to turn that fantasy into a reality.
As the final votes were tallied in the first caucuses of the 2024 campaign, Haley declared that the primary contest had been narrowed down to between her and former President Donald Trump. Trump carried every county in the Hawkeye State except one, where the Republican frontrunner tied with his U.N. ambassador.
“I can safely say tonight Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race,” Haley said.
The former two-term governor of South Carolina claimed to be triumphant despite a third-place finish with less than 20 percent of the vote. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was the runner-up with 21 percent, and Trump carried the contest in first with 51 percent.
[RELATED: Actual Republicans Want Nothing To Do With Nikki Haley]
On Tuesday, Haley defended her third-place finish as some sort of vindication that she was running against Trump, and no one else, in the Republican primary.
“We came out with a strong showing. That’s what we wanted in Iowa,” she said.
Haley dropped out of the ABC News debate in New Hampshire, refusing to stand on stage with anyone other than the former president.
“We’ve had five great debates in this campaign,” Haley wrote on platform X. “Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them. He has nowhere left to hide. The next debate I do will either
