Donald Trump has won the Republican primaries in New Hampshire and tightened his grip on the Republican nomination over his last opponent Nikki Haley.
The former president, 77, is now moving closer to a rematch with Joe Biden in the November 2024 general election after winning his second contest in eight days.
The Associated Press called the race shortly after polls closed at 8:00 PM ET. The victory came about a week after his win in the Iowa caucuses. Trump is the first Republican candidate in nearly fifty years to win 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 used his victories to pressure Nikki Haley to drop out of the presidential race.
“I think we’ll see the end of the primaries, hopefully later tonight,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greeene said Tuesday morning as she campaigned for Trump at the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester. “It would be a good choice for Nikki Haley if she drops out after this election. Things aren’t going to go well for her.’
Donald Trump campaigns at an event in Londonderry NH.
However, Haley has vowed to continue fighting.
‘I don’t do what he tells me to do. I never did what he tells me to do,” she said Tuesday morning about calls from Trump to quit.
The former president shrugged.
‘I don’t care if she stays home. Let her do what she wants, it doesn’t matter,” Trump said of Haley on Tuesday afternoon while campaigning in Londonderry.
But Trump’s campaign used his victory to call on Haley to resign.
“Nikki Haley said she’s running to stop Harris-Biden’s reelection. But without a viable path to victory, every day she remains in this race is a day she contributes to the Harris-Biden campaign. It’s time for unity, it’s time to take the fight to Democrats, and for Nikki Haley, it’s time to drop out,” Taylor Budowich, CEO of Make America Great Again Inc., said in a statement.
Most polling places in New Hampshire closed at 7:00 PM and all polling places closed at 8:00 PM. As soon as the screens at Trump’s primary revealed his victory, his supporters went wild, chanting “USA, USA” and throwing their red MAGA caps in the air.
Trump is holding his election night party at the Sheraton hotel in Nashua, NH. Before the polls closed, the mood was pleasant and campaign workers were among the guests. There was an open bar and snacks.
Eric Trump and his wife Lara joined the campaign team for dinner at the hotel’s restaurant. On the way out, they ran into Vivek Ramaswamy and stopped for a powpow. Kari Lake works in the press room talking about Trump’s campaign. Former Rep. George Santos stood in line at the bar. Senator Tim Scott was working in the room.
Other guests took photos in front of the backdrop of flags as giant TV screens played cable news networks as the countdown to the results was underway.
About 40% of registered voters in New Hampshire are not affiliated with a party and can vote in either primary.
With Tuesday night’s victory and his victory in the Iowa caucuses last Monday, Trump set a new record.
He became the first Republican presidential candidate to win in open races in Iowa and New Hampshire since both states began leading the electoral calendar in 1976.
The victories demonstrate his hold on the party and cast more doubt on Haley’s ability to dent it, even as an Associated Press exit poll showed more voters in New Hampshire had doubts about Trump than voters in Iowa.
About half of Republican voters in New Hampshire said they were very or somewhat concerned that Trump is too extreme to win the general election. Only about a third said the same about Haley.
Trump led in the polls by double digits leading up to Election Day. But Haley argues there is a large group of independent voters who don’t want to vote for the former president.
“About 50 percent of Republican primaries 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 Tuesday morning.
They point to the Iowa caucuses as proof of their argument.
The 110,000 voters who participated in the 2024 Iowa caucuses made up just under 15% of the state’s 752,000 registered Republicans, according to the results. And it’s a much lower number than the 186,000 released in 2016.
But Trump’s twin victories are leading to a growing sense of inevitability that the 2024 general election will be a repeat of the 2020 battle: Trump versus Biden. Polls show that most Americans don’t want a second chance, even if the country is marching toward it.
Eric Trump and Lara Trump talk with Vivek Ramaswamy as they wait for the New Hampshire results
Donald Trump led by double digits in the polls heading into the New Hampshire primary
Nikki Haley said she won’t drop out of the race despite pressure from Team Trump
After winning the Iowa caucuses – by 30 points – former President Trump called on the Republican Party to rally behind his candidacy.
Many Republican presidential candidates dropped out of the race and endorsed him: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Trump will head west after the primaries to campaign in Nevada. He is also still involved in the defamation trial against Jean Carroll in New York.
Haley announced she will hold a campaign event in Charleston on Wednesday, the day after the New Hampshire primary, ahead of the South Carolina primary. Haley’s home state will hold its nominating contest a month from now on Feb. 24.