Nikki Haley s long odds to defeat her former boss for the GOP presidential nomination have likely gotten even longer following her blowout loss in a Nevada primary where none of these candidates beat her 2 to 1 and Donald Trump wasnt even on the ballot.

The coup-attempting former presidents supporters in the state party arranged for their 26 delegates to be awarded in Thursdays party-run caucuses, a decision with the unintended consequence of leaving the former United Nations ambassador as the only major candidate left in the race to appear on Tuesdays state-run primary ballot.

But instead of taking advantage of that by trying to drive up participation and be able to claim her first victory, Haley chose to ignore it. As a result, Haley instead won terrible headlines just two and a half weeks before the primary in her home state, South Carolina, by receiving just 21,207 votes. The none-of-the-above choice, which has been on Nevada ballots since 1975, received 43,921 votes.

Whats notable about yesterdays numbers out of Nevada is that even without Trump on the ballot, Haley couldnt beat none of the above, Jennifer Horn, a former state GOP chair in New Hampshire, said Wednesday. If she cant win when there is no opposition, its insane to believe she can beat Trump on the ballot.

Haley had been riding a wave of voter interest and enthusiasm after favorable polls in Iowa, but wound up finishing third in that state last month. She was the only remaining major candidate challenging Trump by the time of the New Hampshire primary, but her hopes of winning there fell short in an 11-percentage-point loss.

Haleys campaign did not respond to a HuffPost query about the Nevada result. In a Wednesday interview with Fox Business, she said she had no concerns about how it turned out.

We always knew Nevada was a scam, Haley said . Trump had it rigged from the very beginning. There are multiple press stories on that. ... They wanted us to pay $55,000 to just participate in their caucus. So we didnt spend a day or $1 there. We werent even worried about it.

A day before that election, campaign manager Betsy Ankney criticized the pro-Trump state party for creating an alternate election scheme that would be easier for Trump to win.

We have not spent a dime nor an ounce of energy on Nevada, Ankney told reporters. We arent going to pay $55,000 to a Trump entity to participate in a process that is rigged for Trump. Nevada is not and has never been our focus.

But that description having spent no time or money in the state also effectively describes Haleys approach to date in the 15 states and one territory voting on March 5, Super Tuesday, when a third of the total available delegates will be awarded. And that in turn suggests that Haley may well perform just as badly in those states as she did in the Nevada primary, although the Americans for Prosperity group has been working to help Haley in some of the states.

And though it is true that contest had no effect on delegates, a victory in Nevada particularly if she had wound up winning more votes than Trump receives in Thursdays caucuses would likely have helped her with momentum, which political professionals in both parties agree is more important in the early voting states than the relatively small number of delegates at stake.

She made a very bad decision by not coming here at least once or twice, said Amy Tarkanian, a former state Republican Party chair in Nevada. She could have done fairly decently.