Donald Trump has won the New Hampshire primary, narrowing Nikki Haley’s path to the nomination and further underscoring his dominance of the Republican Party.
The Associated Press called the race shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m.
Haley had bet big on New Hampshire, hoping that a “strong” performance in the second contest of the GOP primary could build enough momentum to mount a serious challenge to Trump. Her hopes got higher after Ron DeSantis, who had finished ahead of her in the Iowa caucus but still about thirty points behind the frontrunner, suspended his campaign—pitting Haley against her former boss in a head-to-head matchup between “one lady and one fella.”
“May the best woman win,” Haley quipped after his Sunday exit.
A Haley victory wasn’t in the cards, though, and Trump once again showcased his stranglehold on the GOP—despite his two impeachments, 91 criminal charges, authoritarian agenda, and questions about his fitness for office. Indeed, Haley, a more traditional conservative, has run a campaign premised on restoring the party to its pre-Trump state. But in Iowa and New Hampshire, Republican voters indicated they mostly prefer Trump’s cult of personality to that iteration of the GOP.
A CNN exit poll highlighted the alternative information universe that many Trump voters reside in, with 80 percent believing the lie that Joe Biden didn’t legitimately win the 2020 election. By comparison, 83 percent of Haley voters say Biden legitimately won.
While the results leave Haley with an uncertain path forward, the former United Nations ambassador vowed Tuesday to stay in the race. “Now you’ve all heard the chatter among the political class. They’re falling all over themselves saying this race is over,” she told her supporters. “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. There are dozens of states left to go.”
Haley specifically mentioned her “sweet state of South Carolina,” where she served as governor. But it’s unclear how much momentum—to the extent she really had any in this uncompetitive primary season—she’ll bring to it, especially as members of the state’s delegation, including Representative Nancy Mace and Senator Tim Scott, throw their support behind Trump.
Meanwhile, Biden proved victorious in the Democratic primary despite not appearing on the ballot, as a write-in campaign vaulted him over longshot competitors like Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson.
New Hampshire has long revered its position as the “first in the nation” primary, traditionally taking place after the Iowa caucuses. But Biden, who finished 5th in New Hampshire in the 2020 primary, urged the Democratic National Committee to move South Carolina—the more diverse southern state that revived his previous presidential campaign—to the top of the primary schedule. Since New Hampshire wouldn’t budge, and continued with plans to hold the first Republican and Democratic primaries on Tuesday, the DNC said it would award no delegates to the winner. Though Biden opted not to campaign, state Democrats urged voters to write him in.
Eric Lutz
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