Nikki Haley Pulls Off Unexpected Primary Upset in Vermont

In a Super Tuesday surprise, Nikki Haley won Vermont, notching the first—and potentially only—state primary victory of her 2024 presidential campaign.

Early returns had the former South Carolina governor neck-and-neck with Donald Trump in the tiny state, but she was able to open up a lead of over 3 percentage points over Trump as the final ballots came in. The Associated Press projected her the winner nearly four hours after polls closed Tuesday evening.

Worth only 17 delegates, the Vermont win won’t do much to help Haley catch up to Trump in the race for the GOP nomination, and she was getting defeated by wide margins in several other contests on Super Tuesday.

By Wednesday morning, Trump will likely be within striking distance of the 1,215 delegates he needs to mathematically clinch the nomination.

But Haley’s victory will, if nothing else, serve as a morale boost and a win that proves, at least in one small corner of the country, that Republicans are ready to move on from Trump.

Without a clear path to the nomination, Haley came into Super Tuesday looking to do as much damage to Trump as possible—and perhaps boost her own brand—by showing there’s still strong demand for a Trump alternative within the GOP.

It’s possible Haley’s energetic campaign schedule made a difference: she made a campaign stop in Vermont ahead of Super Tuesday, a surprising sight in a state that is often forgotten during election season. She stumped in South Burlington alongside Gov. Phil Scott, the state’s popular moderate GOP incumbent.

But Vermont is not Haley’s only victory of the primary campaign, even if it is the first state she has carried. On Sunday, she won the District of Columbia’s GOP primary by a 30 point margin, though barely more than 2,000 people voted. That contest awarded her 19 delegates, two more than were up for grabs in Vermont.