Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s campaign lashed out Thursday at a plot to have the Republican National Committee declare former President Donald Trump the presumptive nominee before he amasses a majority of delegates.
After losing Iowa and New Hampshire to Trump, Haley said Tuesday night she would press on, taking the 2024 primary race to her home state of South Carolina, which holds its GOP primary on February 24.
The move enraged Trump and motivated one of his allies, David Bossie, an RNC committeeman from Maryland, to draft a resolution that, if approved, would deem the ex-president the presumptive nominee even as the primary fight goes on.
‘Who cares what the RNC says?’ Haley campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas told The Dispatch, which first reported Bossie’s maneuver. ‘We’ll let millions of Republican voters across the country decide who should be our party’s nominee, not a bunch of Washington insiders.’
Perez-Cubas continued: ‘If Ronna McDaniel wants to be helpful she can organize a debate in South Carolina, unless she’s also worried that Trump can’t handle being on the stage for 90 minutes with Nikki Haley.’
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley ‘s campaign lashed out Thursday at a plot to have the Republican National Committee declare former President Donald Trump the presumptive nominee before he amasses a majority of delegates
David Bossie, an ally of former President Donald Trump and an RNC committeeman from Maryland, submitted a draft resolution that would have the Republican National Committee deem Trump the presumptive nominee, despite him not amassing half the delegates yet
The Dispatch reported that a vote on the resolution could come as early as the RNC’s 2024 Winter Meeting, to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 30 through February 3.
The RNC’s spokesperson Keith Schipper confirmed that timeline to DailyMail.com.
‘Resolutions, such as this one, are brought forward by members of the RNC. Chairwoman McDaniel doesn’t offer resolutions,’ Schipper clarified. ‘This will be taken up by the Resolutions Committee and they will decide whether to send this resolution to be voted on by the 168 RNC members at our annual meeting next week.’
Under current RNC rules, Trump would still have to amass a majority of delegates – 1,215 – to become the party’s true presumptive nominee.
After the first two contests, the ex-president has 32 delegates to Haley’s 17.
But passage of the resolution could allow the national party to start openly working with the Trump campaign.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel already expressed that she believed Haley should drop out of the race so Republicans can focus on November’s general election against Democratic President Joe Biden.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel said Tuesday night on Fox News Channel that she believed the ‘eventual nominee’ would be former President Donald Trump
Former President Donald Trump dances onstage at his victory party Tuesday night in Nashua, New Hampshire. He won the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary but became enraged at former U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley’s decision to stay in the 2024 race
During an appearance on Fox News Channel Tuesday night – after New Hampshire was called for Trump – McDaniel said that ‘looking at the math and the path going forward … I don’t see it for Nikki Haley.’
‘I think she’s run a great campaign,’ McDaniel continued. ”But I do think there’s a message that is coming out from the voters, which is very clear, we need to unite around our eventual nominee, which is going to be Donald Trump, and we need to make sure we beat Joe Biden.’
McDaniel’s comments irritated at least one former staffer, Brittany Martinez, the former deputy director of Hispanic media for the Republican Party who also worked for now former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
‘Former RNC staffer here. Funny I thought the RNC wasn’t supposed to get involved in primaries?’ Martinez commented on X Wednesday, sharing the McDaniel Fox clip.
‘Rather than try to call the race now, why don’t they focus their efforts on urging Trump to debate Nikki and also sign the RNC nominee loyalty pledge? Neither of which he has done,’ Martinez also said.
Trump refused to debate any of his Republican rivals, whereas Haley showed up to all of the primary debates, though declined to do another one-on-one against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after the two tussled in Iowa earlier this month.
That meant that two primary debates scheduled to take place in New Hampshire were scrapped.
DeSantis shockingly pulled out of the presidential race Sunday, ahead of Tuesday’s Granite State vote, and endorsed Trump, making the race a face-off between the ex-president and his former U.N. ambassador.
The RNC’s 2024 Winter Meeting in Las Vegas will happen before any more votes are cast.
It comes days before Republican primary voters head to the polls – also in Nevada.
But because of a bizarre rift between state lawmakers and the Trump-aligned Nevada Republican Party, there will be both a Republican primary and caucus in Nevada in early February and only the caucus winner will receive delegates toward the nomination.
Because Haley is participating in the primary and not the caucus that means all of Nevada’s delegates will go to Trump.
Once Nevada is concluded, 26 more delegates – out of 2,429 – will be awarded.