Haley just lost Nevada to ‘no one’. Why her campaign says it doesn’t matter

Republican voters turned out to vote against Nikki Haley in Nevada on Tuesday, delivering the sole remaining challenger to Donald Trump’s bid for the GOP nomination an embarrassing night of headlines.

The night was essentially a worst-case scenario for Ms Haley; her campaign chose not to compete in Nevada’s caucuses, set for Thursday, and instead put Ms Haley up against three rivals who had already departed the primary before Tuesday. The result? Instead of losing to Donald Trump in a contest her team blasted as “rigged”, the former governor found herself finishing second behind “none of these candidates” as vote totals came in.

Her campaign, with apparent knowledge of how the state was trending, reminded reporters in a memo earlier this week that the campaign had not run ads or invested any serious effort in Nevada; Ms Haley herself hasn’t been in the state this year, and has instead focused her energy on campaigning in her home state of South Carolina.

“Nevada is not and has never been our focus,” Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankey had said on Monday. “I’m truly not sure what the Trump team is up to out there but they seem pretty spun up about it.”

But that doesn’t change the fact that Mr Trump’s support in the GOP remains strong enough to deliver a defeat to Ms Haley even when he isn’t on the ballot. Thanks to rules allowing voters to participate in both the primary and caucus this year, Ms Haley is now caught in the middle of a one-two punch: Mr Trump will “win” his uncontested caucus tomorrow, delivering another round of uncomfortable headlines for his rival.

Nevada was never going to change anything. The state Republican party relegated itself to near-irrelevance this year by refusing to go along with Nevada’s