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Donald Trump has won the New Hampshire Republican primary and tightened his grip on the GOP presidential nomination over his last opponent Nikki Haley.
The former president, 77, is now inching closer to a re-match with Joe Biden in the November 2024 general election after winning his second contest in the space of eight days.
The Associated Press called the race shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m. ET. The victory came about a week after his win in the Iowa caucuses. Trump is the first GOP candidate in almost 50 years to sweep both contests, an indication of his iron grip on the Republican party. Meanwhile President Joe Biden won the Democratic contest despite not being on the ballot in New Hampshire.
Trump and his team have been using his victories to pressure Nikki Haley to drop out of the presidential race.
‘I think we’re going to see the end of the primary, hopefully later tonight,’ Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greeene said Tuesday morning as she campaigned for Trump at the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester. ‘It’d be a good choice for Nikki Haley if she drops out after this election. It’s is not going to go well for her.’
Donald Trump campaigning at an event in Londonderry NH.
Haley, however, has vowed to fight on, declaring after Trump’s win that the race is ‘not over.’
‘I want to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory tonight. He earned it, and I want to acknowledge that. You have all heard the chatter among the political class. They are falling all over themselves, saying this race is over,’ she said.
‘It’s not over!,’ she declared as her supporters cheered.
‘New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation. This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go.’
Earlier Tuesday, before polls closed, the former president shrugged it off.
‘I don’t care if she stays in. Let her do whatever she wants, it doesn’t matter,’ Trump said of Haley when he campaigned in Londonderry on Tuesday afternoon.
But Trump’s campaign used his victory to call on Haley to drop out, accusing her of helping Joe Biden and Kamala Harris by staying in the race.
‘Nikki Haley said she’s running to stop the re-election of Harris-Biden. Yet, without a viable path to victory, every day she stays in this race is another day she delivers to the Harris-Biden campaign. It’s time for unity, it’s time to take the fight to the Democrats, and for Nikki Haley: it’s time to drop out,’ said Taylor Budowich, CEO of Make America Great Again Inc., in a statement.
The majority of polls closed in New Hampshire at 7 p.m. and all polls closed at 8 pm. As soon as the screens at Trump’s primary party revealed his win, his supporters went wild, chanting ‘USA, USA’ and throwing their red MAGA caps into the air.
Former Rep. George Santos at the Trump primary night party in New Hampshire
Vivek Ramaswamy and Kari Lake work the media row at Trump’s primary party
Hopeful Nikki Halye supporteres at her election night party
Trump is holding his election night party at the Sheraton hotel in Nashua, N.H. Ahead of polls closing, the mood was jovial with campaign staff mingling with guests. There was an open bar and snack food.
Eric Trump and his wife Lara joined the campaign team for dinner in the hotel restaurant. They ran into Vivek Ramaswamy on their way out and stopped for a powpow. Kari Lake is working the press area, talking up Trump’s campaign. Former Rep. George Santos was in line at the bar. Senator Tim Scott was working the room.
Other guests took pictures in front of backdrop of flags as giant TV screens played out the cable news nets while the countdown to results was on.
About 40% of New Hampshire’s registered voters are not affiliated by party, and they can vote in either primary.
With Tuesday night’s win and his victory in Iowa caucuses last Monday, Trump set a new record.
He became the first Republican presidential candidate to prevail in open races in Iowa and New Hampshire since both states began leading the election calendar in 1976.
The wins show his hold on the party and casts more doubt on Haley’s ability to dent it even as an Associated Press exit poll found that more voters in New Hampshire had doubts about Trump than did voters in Iowa.
About half of New Hampshire Republican voters said they were very or somewhat concerned that Trump is too extreme to win the general election. Only about one-third said the same about Haley.
Trump led in the polls by double digits in the run-up to Election Day. But Haley argues there is a large swath of independent voters out there who don’t want to vote for the former president.
‘Roughly 50 percent of Republican primary voters want an alternative to Donald Trump. Seventy-five percent of the country wants an option other than Donald Trump and Joe Biden,’ her campaign wrote in a memo on Tuesday morning.
They point to the Iowa caucuses as proof of their argument.
The 110,000 voters who participated in the 2024 Iowa caucuses accounted for just under 15% of the state’s 752,000 registered Republicans, according to the results. And it’s a far lower number than the 186,000 who came out in 2016.
But Trump’s double wins are leading to a growing sense of inevitability that the 2024 general election will be a repeat of the 2020 contest: Trump vs. Biden. Polls show most Americans don’t want a rematch even as the country marches toward one.
Eric Trump and Lara Trump talk with Vivek Ramaswamy as they wait for New Hampshire results
Donald Trump led by double digits in the polls heading into the New Hampshire primary
Nikki Haley vowed to stay in the race: ‘New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation. This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go.’
After he won the Iowa caucuses – by 30 points – former President Trump called on the Republican Party to come together behind his candidacy.
Many GOP presidential contenders bowed out of the race and endorsed him: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Trump will head west after the primary to campaign in Nevada. He’s also still dealing with the Jean Carroll defamation trial in New York.
Haley has announced she will hold a campaign event in Charleston on Wednesday, the day after New Hampshire’s primary, ahead of South Carolina’s primary. Haley’s home state holds its nominating contest in a month on February 24th.
