Former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) is projected to beat former President Donald Trump in Vermont’s open Republican presidential primary, according to the Associated Press.
The agency called the race for Haley at 10:37 p.m. ET, nearly four hours after polls closed. Around the time of the call, the New York Times’ election results showed Haley had 49.7 percent of the vote to Trump’s 46 percent, with 92 percent of the total vote tabulated.
BREAKING: Nikki Haley wins the Republican presidential primary in Vermont. #APRaceCall at 10:37 p.m. EST. https://t.co/FjgpZFcJ4E
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) March 6, 2024
This marks the first state that Haley has won in the Republican nominating process. However, she was victorious in the District of Columbia Republican primary on Sunday.
Vermont has 17 delegates at stake, and a candidate scores all 17 if they eclipse the 50 percent vote threshold, as NBC News noted. If she wins a majority of the vote she will win the 17 delegates outright, but if she wins with plurality, the delegates will be divided between she and Trump proportional to their vote shares.
Notably, Vermont has open primaries, meaning constituents can vote in whichever party’s contest they choose.
“Vermonters cannot formally register with a political party in the state and are free to take Republican or Democratic presidential primary ballots, leading to the possibility of crossover voting,” the VT Digger’s Emma Cotton and Paul Heintz note. In other words, liberals can vote in Republican primaries, and conservatives can vote in Democrat primaries.
Trump won every other Super Tuesday race decided at the time of this publication, putting his record for the day at 11-1. The nation awaits results from Utah, California, and Alaska.
