New Hampshire voters overwhelmingly turned out for ex-president Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election on Tuesday night, leaving former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley trailing far behind.
Following on his from victory in the Iowa caucuses, Trump is well on his way to collecting the 1,215 delegate votes needed to officially be declared nominee at the party’s convention in Milwaukee in July.
Never before has a presidential candidate won the first two contests on the primary nomination calendar — as Trump has now done — and failed to emerge as the party’s general election nominee.
Trump cannot mathematically secure the delegate majority he needs to become the presumptive nominee before Super Tuesday on March 5.
Even President Joe Biden admitted in a statement that Trump is likely the nominee for the GOP. A recent Five Thirty Eight poll gave Trump a four percent lead over the aging liberal in a national showdown election.
Despite Haley vowing to stay in the race, Trump’s campaign has raised far more money and is outperforming the former governor in nationwide polls
Donald Trump signaled that he was turning his attention to the general election with President Joe Biden on Tuesday night after wrapping up victory in New Hampshire
Despite the crushing defeat, Haley was defiant, declaring that she will stay in the race. Her campaign will shift focus to her home state of South Carolina which is on February 24.
The reality is that following two defeats, it will be difficult for Haley to keep with Trump’s fundraising capabilities. At the time of writing, Trump’s campaign has raised $60 million while Haley has raised just $18.7 million.
In addition, Trump is outpolling Haley in nearly every other state and territory left to vote for nominee. A total of 125 members Republican members of the House of Representatives have endorsed Trump while just one has endorsed Haley.
In the US Senate, 26 Republicans have endorsed Trump, none have endorsed Haley, although 13 have yet to endorse anyone.
Of the states yet to vote for nominee, 11 governors have endorsed Trump and two have endorsed Haley, one of those was New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu.
The next batch of delegates will be awarded in Nevada but thanks to a bizarre system, Trump has already won the state
The next state to pledge delegates is Nevada but thanks to a quirk in the nomination process, Trump has already won all 30 of the state’s delegates because as he himself put it Haley ‘decided not to play in Nevada’ because his polling was so strong.
Therefore, her name is not on the caucus ballot but oddly Governor Ron DeSantis, who has already dropped out of the race, will appear as a candidate.
On the same day as that caucus, the US Virgin Islands will also hold a primary for the territory’s four delegates.
Trump referenced the Nevada situation in a gloating victory speech in the Granite State on Tuesday night. ‘I did hear Nikki say ‘it’s off to South Carolina,’ and I do love South Carolina, but she forgot one thing: next week it’s off to Nevada. And I’m please to announce we just won Nevada, 100 percent.’
A Fox News poll found that 32 percent of Republican voters in New Hampshire said that they would not vote for Trump in a national contest.
Only about half of New Hampshire Republican voters identify with Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ movement. And about half disagree with Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
According to a CBS poll, Trump won just 23 self-identifying moderate Republican voters and 39 percent of college graduates.
Haley’s last stand will likely be in her home state of South Carolina, if she can hang on for that long
Former South Carolina Nikki Haley did better than the 20-point defeat than some polls predicted in New Hampshire, but she faces an almost impossible path to the nomination
Haley is a native of South Carolina and served as the state’ s governor between 2011 and 2017 but Trump has secured the endorsement of all of the major conservative figures in the state, making a Haley victory difficult to envisage in the February 24 contest.
‘New Hampshire is first in the nation, it’s not last in the nation. This race is far from over,’ Haley told cheering supporters in Concord.
Haley’s team was quick to note that roughly 5 in 10 primary voters do not support Trump.
Her advisers insist she will stay in the race to serve as a vehicle for those anti-Trump forces who are still hoping he might be forced out of the race by his legal problems, or perhaps a health emergency.
And at least for now, the 52-year-old former South Carolina governor still has math and donors on her side.
Haley is now scheduled to embark upon a fundraising tour that includes stops in New York, Florida, California and Texas.
Her campaign is also launching a new $4 million advertising campaign in South Carolina that begins Wednesday.
But Trump made clear he’ll go full-out to bury Haley. ‘She didn’t win — she lost,’ he said Tuesday night, slamming Haley’s concession speech. He later posted a message on Truth Social directed at Haley: ‘NIKKI CAME IN LAST, NOT SECOND!’
Trump was flanked by Haley’s home state Sen. Tim Scott and her antagonist in many of the GOP presidential debates, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom have endorsed him.
He signaled a more punishing approach ahead. ‘I don’t get mad,’ Trump said, ‘I get even.’
After South Carolina, the contests come thick and fast before ending on June 4, six weeks before the nominee will be crowned at the Republican National Convention
Three days after South Carolina, Michigan will hold its Republican primary. Then Washington DC’s will he be held on March 3, a day later, North Dakota conservatives will caucus.
After that, its the monster that is Super Tuesday which will be held on March 5 as voters go to the polls and the caucuses in Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.
A mini Super Tuesday occurs on March 12 when Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state hold primaries while Hawaii holds its caucus.
The territories of Northern Mariana and Guam will hold caucuses on March 15 and 16 respectively.
On March 19, primaries will take place in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio.
March 23 sees the Louisiana primary.
Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, will all hold primaries on April 2. Wyoming will hold its caucus on April 21. Puerto Rico and Pennsylvania hold primaries on April 21 and 23 respectively.
The calendar then begins to wind-down with Indiana holding its primary on May 7 and Maryland, Nebraska and West Virginia holding their’s a week later. May 21 will see primaries in Kentucky and Oregon.
The final battles will be held on June 4 in Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.
Biden was also a winner in New Hampshire on Tuesday
President Joe Biden fired the starting gun in the general election race on Tuesday night, soon after former President Donald Trump went two from two in the first nominating states.
Joe Biden did not put his name on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary. The results are not binding for convention delegates. He won anyway, thanks to an aggressive write-in campaign.
Biden muscled the Democratic National Committee into giving South Carolina, the state that set him on a path to the White House with a victory in 2020, the first official party primary. It’s on Feb. 3.
Like Trump, Biden could read good news in the results, with roughly 8 in 10 Democrats approving of his handling of the economy, along with a warning: About half say that, at age 81, he’s too old to run, and about half disapprove of his handling of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, according to AP VoteCast.
Both men are clearly in commanding positions … for a rematch that many voters say they do not want.