Heading into Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, Donald Trump is making an aggressive play to lock up the Republican nomination by pressuring Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley to drop out. According to sources, Trump has been calling DeSantis and Haley allies to make the case that the race is over. Trump is pulling 50% of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters, according to a Boston Globe/Suffolk University/NBC10 poll released this week, while Haley trails at 34% and DeSantis clocks in at just 5%. “The plan is to back all the donors and Fox off [the other candidates] and close it out by next Wednesday,” a Republican close to Trump told me.
Trump is following a carrot-and-stick strategy to get Haley and DeSantis to drop out of the race, sources briefed on the Trump campaign’s thinking told me. On Monday night, Trump uncharacteristically extended an olive branch to his rivals during his victory speech after crushing them in the Iowa caucuses. “We’re gonna come together. It’s gonna happen soon too. It’s gonna happen soon,” he told supporters in Des Moines.
Meanwhile, Trump has been racking up endorsements, lending his victory an air of inevitability. Ted Cruz this week became the 25th Republican senator to endorse Trump, following on the heels of another onetime rival, Marco Rubio. “Congratulations to President Trump on that dominating victory. And at this point, I believe this race is over,” Cruz told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. Behind the scenes, Trump has been on a charm offensive to increase his support. According to multiple sources, Trump has been calling South Carolina senator Tim Scott, seeking his endorsement before the February 24 primary in Haley’s home state. (The New York Times also reported Thursday on Trump’s efforts to cultivate Scott.) “[Trump] talks to Scott fairly regularly, and we hope there is an endorsement before South Carolina,” a Trump adviser said. A Scott spokesperson did not immediately comment.
Trump is trying to quickly put the nomination away while navigating treacherous legal waters, appearing in a New York courtroom on Wednesday for a defamation lawsuit before holding a New Hampshire rally that night. (Trump is also contending with four criminal cases, including two over 2020 election subversion, that should play out amid the 2024 election.) On Friday, Trump will campaign in New Hampshire alongside New York representative Elise Stefanik, a VP contender who this week called on “every other candidate—all of whom have no chance to win—to drop out.”
Of course, Trump being Trump, he is willing to go scorched-earth himself on Haley and DeSantis. On Tuesday, he attacked Haley in highly personal terms on his social media platform, Truth Social, by misspelling her birth name, Nimarata: “Anyone listening to Nikki ‘Nimrada’ Haley’s wacked out speech last night, would think that she won the Iowa Primary. She didn’t, and she couldn’t even beat a very flawed Ron DeSanctimonious, who’s out of money, and out of hope.”
Gabriel Sherman
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