Trump won the first Republican presidential caucus this Monday with more than 51 percent of the vote. DeSantis came in second with more than 21 percent of the votes and Haley followed him with 19 percent of the votes | File image (Photo: Bloomberg)
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has indicated he will largely bypass next week’s New Hampshire primary and instead focus on South Carolina, where the Republican presidential primary will take place on February 24.
The move sets up a direct battle between former President Donald Trump and Indian American Nikki Haley for the crucial Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire on January 23.
The latest poll released Wednesday shows Trump and Haley tied in the state with both at 40 percent in the polls.
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu has endorsed Haley.
Trump won the first Republican presidential caucus this Monday with more than 51 percent of the vote. DeSantis came in second with more than 21 percent of the votes and Haley followed him with 19 percent of the votes.
On Wednesday, the DeSantis campaign indicated it would largely skip campaigning in New Hampshire and instead focus all its resources and energy on South Carolina, which also happens to be Haley’s home state, where she was twice elected governor.
I am the only candidate to beat Joe Biden by double digits. And a victory of this magnitude means a conservative landslide from school boards to the U.S. Senate. We will have a mandate to stop the chaos and save America, Haley wrote in an op-ed for the New Hampshire Journal.
Sununu told the New Hampshire Journal that the presidential primary is still a two-person race between Haley and Trump.
Because DeSantis isn’t there (in New Hampshire). He’s out of money, he’s out of momentum and he’s in single digits, he said.
The New York Times wrote that DeSantis’ change in strategy appeared to lead to the head-to-head matchup in New Hampshire that Nikki Haley was hoping for against former President Donald J. Trump, who is leading in the polls but is more vulnerable in the moderate state than in socially conservative Iowa. At the same time, the shift could put new pressure on Haley in South Carolina, where she once served as governor, the report said.
According to the Daily and multiple other media outlets, the DeSantis Campaign began moving a majority of its staff to South Carolina to prepare for the Feb. 24 primary.
If Nikki Haley fails to win her home state, she’s done for and this will be a two-man race. We are wasting no time in bringing the fight straight to Haley on her home turf, campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo told The New York Times in a statement.
But the move showed that DeSantis had all but given up on the competition in New Hampshire, where his poll numbers were abysmal and trailing Trump and Haley by single digits, the newspaper reported.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: January 18, 2024 | 08:30 IST