Donald Trump won the North Dakota Republican presidential caucuses on Monday night, returning his campaign for the 2024 GOP nomination to a winning streak that was interrupted for the first time a day earlier with Nikki Haley’s victory in Washington, D.C.
The former president won 84.6 percent of the overall vote, according to the Associated Press, while Haley attracted just 14.2 percent. “A 70 Point win in the Great State of North Dakota tonight,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, later reminding his voters of what’s next: “SUPER TUESDAY, a really big deal. Please get out and VOTE!”
In winning more than 60 percent of the vote, Trump takes all of the state’s 29 delegates, bringing his overall total to 273. Former South Carolina Gov. Haley has just 43 heading into Super Tuesday, in which about one-third of the remaining available delegates will be distributed as voters cast their ballots in caucuses and primaries across 15 states. Trump holds commanding poll leads over Haley in the day’s two biggest races—the California primary, with 169 delegates, and the Texas primary, which has 161.
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Speaking in an interview with Right Side Broadcasting Network at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, Trump hailed his near-perfect record in the races so far. “We were just knockin’ ’em dead,” Trump said. “In New Hampshire, we had the most votes in history. Iowa—we had the biggest margin in history times two. And in Nevada was a record, all records. Something’s really fantastic happening out there.”
He went to claim that the “country wants help.” “They’re screaming for help, I really believe it, with millions and millions of people coming in illegally.” Trump then got a big laugh rehashing a favorite line comparing migrants to the fictional cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter.
“They’re rough people,” Trump said of those crossing the southern U.S. border. “In many cases from jails, prisons. From mental institutions, insane asylums. You know insane asylums? That’s Silence of the Lambs stuff. Hannibal Lecter! Anybody know Hannibal Lecter? We don’t want ’em in this country.”
It’s unclear how long Haley will remain in the race for the nomination.
In her final campaign stop before Super Tuesday, Haley told supporters in Fort Worth, Texas, that the race had been a “whirlwind.” “I announced [my campaign] just over a year ago,” the former U.N. ambassador said. “We had 14 people in the race. I defeated a dozen of the fellas,” she said to cheers. “I just have one more fella I gotta catch up to.”
