Nikki Haley Defeats Trump in Vermont on Big Night for Ex-President

Sean Rayford/SOPA Images/Sipa USA via AP Images

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley won her first state GOP primary on Tuesday by defeating former President Donald Trump in Vermont.

The call was made by Decision Desk HQ just after 10:20 p.m. ET.

Unfortunately for the former South Carolina governor, she appears poised to lose the other 14 contests on the Super Tuesday slate.

Haley, who won the Washington, D.C. Republican primary on Sunday, had lost every state race. Tuesday’s contests cemented Trump’s position as the runaway frontrunner to win the Republican nomination and a rematch against President Joe Biden.

Trump stormed to victories in earlier caucus and primary states, including Haley’s home state where he defeated her by 20 points. Haley is viewed with skepticism among many in the Republican base, which sees her as an establishment figure cut from the cloth of the pre-Trump Republican Party. Haley, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, said that while Trump “was the right president at the right time,” the GOP should move on from him in part because he is under criminal indictment in four jurisdictions.

The former governor has not said whether she would endorse Trump if he is the eventual nominee.

“I think I’ll make what decision I make, but that’s not something I’m thinking about,” she said on Sunday’s Meet the Press.