Coming off a brutal defeat in Nevada, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Wednesday that the state’s dueling primary and caucus amounted to a “scam” and that she’s focused on bigger states.
Her remarks on Fox Business come a day after Haley, who was the only major candidate on the state’s essentially symbolic Republican primary ballot, lost to a “none of these candidates” option.
“We always knew Nevada was a scam,” the former South Carolina governor said. “Trump had it rigged from the very beginning. There are multiple press stories on that. Our focus is on South Carolina going into Michigan, going into Super Tuesday. Those are the places that we’re worried about. We’re not focused on Nevada. We never were.”
The rigging that Haley referred to is based on Nevada voters being called to both a primary and a caucus this year, much to their confusion. Former President Donald Trump is the only major candidate competing in the caucus Thursday.
Nevada has held only a caucus for decades, but a recent state law mandates a primary be held if more than one presidential candidate files for a party’s nomination. While Democrats fell in line with the new system, the Republican Party refused and said it would hold a caucus two days later.
Eyeing a loophole in the new Nevada law that says nothing about how parties allocate delegates, the GOP announced that candidates would only be awarded delegates through the caucus. Furthermore, it barred anyone who ran in the primary from competing in the caucus and charged a fee to participate in the caucus.
“They wanted us to pay $55,000 to just participate in their caucus,” Haley, a former U.N. ambassador, said on Fox Business. “So we didn’t spend a day or $1 there. We weren’t even worried about it. It’s why we haven’t talked about it.”
Trump beat Haley in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary last month. He’s currently polling at 75% to her 17% in the Republican nomination race.