Donald Trump wasn’t on the ballot, but Nikki Haley still finished second in Nevada’s primary Tuesday—losing out to the “none of these candidates” option by more than 30 points in a major embarrassment for the former president’s last challenger standing.

Of course, the whole exercise was symbolic anyway: Trump wasn’t on the ballot because he’s participating in the state’s caucus, which will award him its 26 delegates Thursday. But his dominance was still reflected Tuesday, where many voters seemed to cast ballots for “none” not in a statement of protest against the godawful options the GOP has put forth this cycle, but in support of Trump. “I voted for ‘none of the above,’ because on Thursday, I’m voting for President Trump, who I will continue to vote for,” as one voter told ABC News.

Because the contest was effectively “rigged”—to borrow one of Trump’s favorite terms—Haley didn’t campaign there, focusing her attention on South Carolina, where she served as governor and is staking what’s left of her 2024 hopes. It’s a humiliation nonetheless: When you come third in Iowa, you can say you’re on the upswing; when you come second in New Hampshire, you can say you’re building momentum; when you pick up only 30 percent of the vote as the only major candidate on the ballot in Nevada? It gets harder to say your campaign has the kind of brawn it’ll take to break Trump’s stranglehold on the party—especially as he tightens his grip.

Indeed, Trump this week got Capitol Hill Republicans to reject a conservative border deal—the kind they’d been demanding—so he can keep using immigration as an election-year issue. At the same time, they took a vote in his name to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, even though they ended up not having the votes to pull it off. But the GOP isn’t letting their own political debasement stop them from caving even further: Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, who is said to have dropped “Romney” from her full name out of deference to Trump, is expected to step down from her post in the coming weeks amid pressure from the former president. All of this spells even tougher sledding for Haley. Not only is she running against a figure with a cultish hold over the party base; she’s running at odds with the party she hopes to represent against President Joe Biden, who easily defeated his challengers on the Democratic side with about 90 percent of the vote. 

Haley has brushed off Tuesday's loss, emphasizing that she “didn’t bother to play a game rigged for Trump.” “Even Donald Trump knows that when you play penny slots the house wins,” her campaign said. “We’re full steam ahead in South Carolina and beyond.” The trouble, though, is that the GOP “house,” as it were, seems behind Trump pretty much everywhere—not just Nevada. “A bad night for Nikki Haley,” Trump gloated. “Watch, she’ll soon claim victory!”