Trump seeks control of the GOP primary in New Hampshire against Nikki Haley, his last major rival
MANCHESTER, NH — MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Donald Trump is aiming for an impressive victory Tuesday in New Hampshire, securing a win in the first two Republican primaries and making a November rematch with President Joe Biden seem more likely than ever.
The biggest question is whether Trump’s last major rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, will be able to eat into his margin — or cause an outright disruption. Haley has devoted significant time and financial resources to New Hampshire, hoping to appeal to its famously independent-minded electorate.
In the first results released early Tuesday, all six registered voters of tiny Dixville Notch cast their ballots for Haley over Trump. The resort town is the only one in New Hampshire this year that has chosen to vote at midnight.
Trump won the Republican primary in New Hampshire in his first bid for president in 2016, but some of his allies lost key races in the midterm elections two years ago. Haley also faces an opponent who has deep ties to the Republican base and who has focused on winning the state decisively enough to effectively end the competitive phase of the Republican primaries.
If successful, Trump would become the first Republican presidential candidate to win open races in Iowa and New Hampshire since both states began leading the electoral calendar in 1976 — a clear sign of his continued hold on the party’s most loyal voters.
Trump’s allies are already pressuring Haley to quit the race and those calls will grow even stronger if he wins New Hampshire easily. If she were to drop out, it would essentially decide the second stop of the Republican primaries, long before the vast majority of Republican voters nationwide have been able to cast ballots.
Haley is campaigning with New Hampshire’s popular Republican governor, Chris Sununu, a Trump critic. She insists she is in the race for the long haul, telling supporters at a VFW hall in Franklin on Monday that “America doesn’t do coronations.”
“This is about the question: do you want more of the same, or do you want someone to move us forward with new solutions,” Haley told reporters, also saying, “We can either do everything we’ve always done.” done and live in the world of chaos that we have had, or we can move on with no drama, no retaliation and no results for the American people.”
“This is a two-man race,” she added.
Haley and Trump both hoped to capitalize on high-profile recent departures from the race. Haley could get a boost from some supporters of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who campaigned to unseat Trump but ended his bid last week shortly before the Iowa caucus. Trump, meanwhile, may be able to consolidate support from conservative voters who backed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who dropped his bid for the White House on Sunday.
Trump, who appeared at a pre-primary rally in Laconia with one of his former chief rivals, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, was already looking to become the race’s final Republican candidate. When asked during a Monday interview with Newsmax whether Haley might abandon her campaign after New Hampshire, the former president said he would never call her out for that, but added, “Maybe she’ll drop out on Tuesday.”
Scot Stebbins Sr., who attended Trump’s rally wearing a Make America Great Again baseball cap, called him “the greatest president we’ve had since Abraham Lincoln” and added that Trump “has done nothing but good for our nation.” ‘
Stebbins said he thought the four criminal cases and 91 felonies Trump faces constituted a “witch hunt” and that Trump would “get rid of all the corrupt politicians who have been there too long and are being paid off.”
“It can’t be bought,” Stebbins said. “He’s a real American. He always has been.”
Democrats also held a primary on Tuesday, but it was unlike any before.
Biden favored new rules from the Democratic National Committee that would see the party’s 2024 primary process begin on Feb. 3 in South Carolina, instead of Iowa or New Hampshire. He argued that Black voters, the party’s most reliable constituency and a crucial part of its victory in South Carolina, which revived its 2020 primary after three opening losses, should play a bigger and earlier role in determining the candidate.
New Hampshire Democrats, citing state laws dictating that their state would hold the nation’s first primary after the Iowa caucus, defied the updated order and went ahead with their primaries as planned.
Biden has not campaigned here and his name will not be on the ballot, meaning the state’s Democrats can vote for the president’s two little-known major challengers: Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson. Still, many of New Hampshire’s top Democrats backed a write-in campaign that they expect Biden to win easily.
Some voters who would otherwise support Democrats could also vote in the more competitive Republican primaries if they are not declared.
Karen Padgett is an undeclared voter who saw Haley on Monday. She said she voted for Trump in the last two elections but had no intention of doing so again, but is also “very annoyed with Joe Biden for kind of writing off New Hampshire.”
“Her explanation is that everyone there is so old, they are so entrenched,” Padgett said of Haley’s promises to shake up Washington in a way that Trump promised but never did. “Let’s bring in some new people.”
Instead of focusing on New Hampshire, Biden joined Vice President Kamala in northern Virginia for a rally in defense of abortion rights, which Democrats see as a winning issue for them nationwide in November.
Nevertheless, there is a growing sense of inevitability around November as Biden’s retaliation against Trump. Both men have been criticized by their opponents for being older — Biden is 81, Trump 77 — and both have portrayed the other as woefully unfit for another term in the White House.
Polls show that most Americans are against a rematch. A December poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 56% of American adults would be very or somewhat dissatisfied with Biden as the Democratic candidate — and 58% felt the same about Trump as the Republican Party’s choice.
Some New Hampshire voters expressed similar frustration.
Jeff Caira, 66, a Republican from Sanbornton, said he was undecided in the primary but wanted a candidate who “addresses the issues, rather than dealing with the baggage that the other two candidates seem to have.”
He said he was “disappointed” that as big as the US is, “the two frontrunners are the best we have to offer.”
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Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Joseph Frederick in Franklin, New Hampshire, Mike Pesoli in Laconia, New Hampshire, and Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2024 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.