Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley bizarrely asserted Tuesday that former President Donald Trump has “nowhere left to hide” after his blowout victory in the Iowa caucuses.
Trump won the Iowa caucuses with 51 percent support among Republican voters, nearly 30 points higher than Gov. Ron DeSantis’s 21.2 percent support. Trump’s victory over Haley was even bigger, besting her by 31.9 percent, or a difference of more than 35,000 votes.
WATCH — Nikki Haley Claims Republican Primary Is a “Two-Person Race” After Placing Third in Iowa Caucus:
C-SPANBut Haley is continuing on in the race and taking it a step further, opting to criticize Trump for refusing to debate her and other Republican hopefuls.
“We’ve had five great debates in this campaign. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them,” Haley said Tuesday, bizarrely accusing Trump of hiding — a critique she has made in the past as well.
“He has nowhere left to hide,” she said. “The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden. I look forward to it”:
We’ve had five great debates in this campaign. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them. He has nowhere left to hide. The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden. I look forward to it.
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) January 16, 2024
Haley is technically correct, as it is virtually impossible for Trump to “hide” with a victory that big. The former president now holds the record for the largest margin of victory in the history of Iowa Republican caucuses, as Breitbart News extensively showcased:
2016: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) Cruz Beats Trump by 3.3 Percent
- Cruz: 27.6 percent
- Trump 24.3 percent
2012: Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) Tie
- Santorum: 24.6 percent
- Romney: 24.6 percent
2008: Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) Beats Romney by 9.2 Percent
- Huckabee: 34.4 percent
- Romney: 25.2 percent
2000: Former President George Bush Beats Forbes Editor-in-Chief Steve Forbes by 9 Percent
- Bush: 41 percent
- Forbes 30 percent
1996: Dole Beats Presidential Consultant Pat Buchanan by 3 Percent
- Dole: 26 percent
- Buchanan: 23 percent
1988: Dole Beats Televangelist Pat Robertson by 12.8 percent, as Reuters noted.
- Dole took roughly 37 percent of the vote that year.
Amazingly, Haley said during her speech on Monday that the Republican primary contest is now a “two-person race,” despite finishing third in the Iowa caucuses.
“At one point in this campaign, there were 14 of us running. I was at two percent in the polls. But tonight, Iowa did what Iowa does so well. The pundits will analyze everything from every angle, we get that,” Haley said.
“But when you look at how we’re doing in New Hampshire, in South Carolina, and beyond, I can safely say tonight Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race,” she claimed.
Haley’s third place finish follows a controversial Q&A over the weekend in Iowa, where she was unwilling to state that a man cannot become a woman.
