It’d be one thing to trail former President Donald Trump by 18 percentage points. But former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is losing by that amount to the no-candidate choice in Nevada.
According to a survey of Republican primary voters in the state released Tuesday, 59.2% plan to vote for “none of these candidates” in the Feb. 6 primary, versus just 40.8% who would vote for Mrs. Haley.
Mr. Trump is not on the ballot in the state’s primary, instead concentrating on its Feb. 8 caucus, which actually determines delegates to the Republican National Convention and which Mr. Trump is expected to win handily.
The Nevada state party allows voters to participate in both the primary and the caucus.
Still, even the absence of Mr. Trump doesn’t much help Mrs. Haley, who lost to the former president by more than 30 percentage points in Iowa and by 11 points in New Hampshire.
“Here’s my conclusion: If Nikki Haley’s going to lose to no one, how can she beat Trump? How can she beat Joe Biden?” Revere Solutions CEO Woodrow Johnston, one of the two groups conducting the survey, told the Washington Examiner. “This whole narrative that she’s the best candidate against Joe Biden is really just kind of shattered because it’s like she can’t even beat literally no one.”
Mrs. Haley has herself not campaigned much in Nevada, concentrating instead on her home state of South Carolina and its Feb. 24 primary. She is also trailing badly there.
The poll by Providence, a joint project of Revere Solutions and DecipherAi, surveyed 476 likely Nevada Republican primary voters Jan. 28-29 and has an error margin of 4 percentage points.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.