Republican Presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump won the key New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, making it closer to locking in the Republican presidential nomination and securing an extraordinary White House rematch with Joe Biden.
With around 80 percent of votes counted, Trump’s winning margin hovered at about 11 percentage points, but his sole challenger Nikki Haley vowed to fight on.
Trump’s victory over a defiant Nikki Haley cemented his hold on core Republican voters and substantially reduced the chances of any challenger overtaking him. In a victory speech, he attacked Haley in a rambling speech and said that when the primary contest reaches her home state of South Carolina, “we’re going to win easily.”
Trump Leading Republican
New Hampshire seemed like a state that Trump could lose. With strong turnout in the New Hampshire, Haley had hoped for a major upset. But US broadcasters projected her defeat as the initial tallies came in.
Trump was already the runaway leader in national Republican polling, despite two impeachments as president, and four criminal trials hanging over him since leaving office.
New Hampshire was markedly more Haley-friendly than the states she will subsequently face, should she stay in the race, and continuing into February and South Carolina will be a tough sell.
Trump won a crushing victory in the first Republican contest in Iowa last week, with Haley a distant third. Trump stormed to victory with 51 percent of Republican voters choosing the twice-impeached former president over DeSantis, who gained only 21 percent, and Haley at 19 percent.
The Republican race of 14 candidates narrowed to a one-on-one matchup last week after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, once the leading Republican rival to Donald Trump, dropped out following his second-place Iowa finish and threw his support behind the former president.
However, Trump did little actual campaigning in New Hampshire. But his message — a mixture of personal grievance and right-wing culture war — has delivered the kind of momentum that supporters believe will sweep him back into the White House.
What Does it Mean for Trump?
No Republican who won both Iowa and New Hampshire has ever lost the nomination battle. That historical data point is gold for Trump, now widely seen as the party’s presumptive flag-bearer heading into November — despite multiple legal scandals and a chaos-filled record as president.
But Trump is facing 91 felony counts across four criminal trials. And his court schedule is set up to ensure that voters won’t be able to forget about the legal drama, even if they want to. The federal trial over Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election is tentatively set to begin March 4, the day before Super Tuesday.
The race now turns to Nevada, where Trump is already claiming an all-but-certain victory, and next month to Haley’s home state of South Carolina, where he leads the former governor by some 30 percentage points.
How’s Biden Faring?
Biden, meanwhile, won an unofficial Democratic primary in New Hampshire, giving him a symbolic boost.
The president marked the day by campaigning alongside Vice President Kamala Harris in Virginia at a rally for abortion rights.
With Trump touting his role in the ending of the constitutional right to abortion, Biden told an enthusiastic crowd that the Republican was “hell-bent” on further restrictions.
Like Trump, Biden could read good news in the results, with roughly 8 in 10 Democrats approving of his handling of the economy, but around half of them 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.
(With inputs from agencies)
Comments
0 comment