Trump accuses Nikki Haley of relying on Democrats and liberals to ‘infiltrate’ the New Hampshire primary and blasts ‘fake’ poll where she beats Biden by 17 points

Former President Donald Trump went after Nikki Haley on Tuesday night as they both turned their attention to New Hampshire and what could be a life-and-death battle.

“Nikki Haley in particular is counting on Democrats and liberals to infiltrate your Republican primaries,” Trump said before an adoring crowd at the Atkinson Country Club.

“You know the left… that’s what happens… has a group of people who are not Republicans, and it artificially inflates its numbers here, even though we’re still ahead by a wide margin.”

After crushing his opponents in Iowa, Trump campaign officials believe he can all but clinch the nomination by defeating Haley in New Hampshire.

“If he beats Nikki in New Hampshire, it’s over,” said one.

She is a close second in the state and arrived for her own campaign event on Tuesday evening.

Several political organizations are leading a stop-Trump effort. They urged Democrats last year to re-register as “black” so they could participate in the Republican primaries and vote for a more moderate candidate.

But she suffered a setback the night before, when she finished only third behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

“Not a particularly good candidate,” Trump said. “Obviously, as you saw, she lost to someone who beat her by about two and a half points. Ron DiSchijnlijkheid.

DeSantis is tracking both in New Hampshire and has indicated he won’t fight hard in the state.

That leaves Haley, who claims she has a better chance against Biden, in Trump’s crosshairs. She frequently cites a Wall Street Journal poll from December that showed her beating the likely Democratic nominee by 17 points.

“That poll is about three months old and it’s a fake poll,” he said with a dose of exaggeration. “And all other polls show her near the bottom in every election.”

He took the stage in New Hampshire after a 24-hour stretch that would have been an extraordinary day of highs and lows for any other candidate.

For Trump it was almost ‘business as usual’.

After crushing his rivals by 30 points in the Iowa caucuses — the first formal test of his popularity — he flew to New York Monday night for his $10 million defamation trial, where a judge told potential jurors that another jury had already determined that the former president sexually abused columnist E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s.
Then it was time for the campaign trail again to wrap up another norm-shattering day in the former president’s life.

And it ended with a chance to unveil Ramaswamy, who retired a day earlier after a disappointing fourth-place finish in Iowa.

The 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur was quick to praise Trump as the kind of leader who could bring stability to a country at war.

“It is between the permanent state and the ordinary citizen, between those of us who love the United States of America and a marginal minority who hate this country and what we stand for,” he said.

“And right now we need a commander-in-chief who will lead us to victory in this war.”

About five hundred people stood shoulder to shoulder in the basement ballroom.

They had to wait about four hours for Trump, whose arrival was delayed by snowstorms and frigid weather in the Northeast.

“This was a little hit and miss tonight, I’ll tell you,” he told his audience, describing how his pilot suggested the trip might not be a good idea, “but I’m glad we made it.”

The adoring fans offered a chance to let off steam after previously doing other things.

He looked angry and grimaced as the judge in his New York defamation trial addressed the jurors. And then he left, before opening statements to race to New Hampshire.

The former president also faces four criminal cases and 91 charges, as well as the defamation case.

He has used his court appearances as a campaign tool, addressing reporters outside the courtroom and using what he says are “witch hunts” to rally his supporters and raise money.

He admitted this last week after listening to the closing arguments in the New York fraud case against him. “I think you would consider it part of the campaign,” he told reporters.

None of the accusations dented the enthusiasm of the crowd in the Atkinson Country Club ballroom.

Michael Navaria, 57, a retired police officer who attended his first Trump event with his wife, said supporters had just figured out the details of the “witch hunt.”

‘Absolute. It upsets me that they’re going after him,” he said. “It’s so clearly political.”

He added that it was up to voters to choose the president, not courts or lawyers. And Trump had an enviable record as president.

“Whatever he says happens,” Navaria said.

Trump’s courtroom campaign is working so far. In Iowa, he won the state’s caucuses by 30 percent, leaving Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley both trying to claim they were the only viable alternative to the former president.

He leads the polls in New Hampshire, but will face a tougher challenge there from Haley, who has made his way to the state’s more moderate electorate.

She launched a statewide ad on Tuesday decrying the possibility of a Trump-Biden rematch in November.

“The two most hated politicians in America,” is how the ad describes them, saying they are “both consumed by chaos, negativity and past grievances.”