Eight days after an historic win in the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, former President Donald Trump bagged another win in New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday. The former president had a victorious call, with him leading former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley 53.6% to 45.3% with 36% of the votes counted.
Trump had already been projected to win the primary only a few minutes after the polls closed.
With Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis out of the race, the GOP presidential race is now down to two major candidates even though DeSantis was still listed in the primary. However, Haley is determined to fight it out with the GOP front runner, even as Trump holds a sway over many Republicans, as evidenced by the primary results so far.
Having congratulated Trump during a speech to supporters, Haley emphasized that the race is not over.
“Now you’ve all heard the chatter among the political class. They’re falling all over themselves saying this race is over. Well, I have news for all of them: New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not last in the nation. This race is far from over,” she stated.
“Now we’re the last one standing next to Donald Trump. And today we got close to half the vote. We still have ways to go, but we still keep moving up,” she added.
Trailing behind Trump might have come as a not-so-surprising disappointment for Haley, who has spent plenty of resources and time in New Hampshire.
In addition to having the endorsement of the state’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who has been very vocal in his support for her, Haley was also expected to benefit from the state’s system which allows independent voters to vote in Republican or Democratic primary contests.
Sununu himself had been confident that she would have a “landslide” win in New Hampshire, before changing his tune after Trump’s big win in Iowa to say that her campaign’s aim is for her to secure “a strong second place.”
“That’s the only expectation we ever laid out there. Now to the fact that she’s challenging him to actually win the state, something no one in the media ever thought was possible, that gets everybody really excited. I mean, that’s a pretty big hill to climb, to be sure, but it can be done,” he had said to ABC News.
Nevertheless, Haley must have still benefited from the state’s independent voters, who reportedly make up 40% of the electorate, as a CNN poll revealed that 70% of the people who voted for the former U.N. ambassador are not registered Republicans.
CNN's exit polls show that 70% of Nikki Haley voters are NOT registered Republicans. pic.twitter.com/TCq5TH2CAL
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 24, 2024
The next sets of races will be at Nevada and South Carolina. However, Haley has opted out of Nevada’s caucuses in order to avoid the hurdle of having to win delegates. Instead, she signed up for the state-run primary on Feb. 6, two days before the caucus is scheduled to hold.
