Voters in New Hampshire on Tuesday evening overwhelmingly chose former President Donald Trump as the Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election, leaving former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley far behind.
After his victory in the Iowa caucuses, Trump is on track to collect the 1,215 delegate votes needed to be officially declared the candidate at the party’s convention in Milwaukee in July.
Never before has a presidential candidate won the first two contests on the primary calendar – as Trump has now done – and failed to emerge as a candidate for the general election.
Trump cannot mathematically secure the majority of delegates he needs to become the presumptive nominee before Super Tuesday on March 5.
Even President Joe Biden admitted in a statement that Trump is likely the Republican Party’s nominee. A recent Five Thirty Eight poll gave Trump a four percent lead over the aging liberal in a national showdown.
Despite Haley vowing to stay in the race, Trump’s campaign has raised far more money and is outperforming the former governor in national polls
Donald Trump signaled Tuesday night that he was turning his attention to the general election, along with President Joe Biden, after clinching victory in New Hampshire
Despite the crushing defeat, Haley was defiant and declared that she would stay in the race. Her campaign will shift focus to her home state of South Carolina on February 24.
The reality is that after two defeats, it will be difficult for Haley to keep up with Trump’s fundraising prowess. As of this writing, Trump’s campaign has raised $60 million, while Haley has raised just $18.7 million.
Moreover, Trump outranks Haley in almost every other state and territory where the candidate is still up for vote. A total of 125 Republican members of the House of Representatives have endorsed Trump, while only one has endorsed Haley.
In the U.S. Senate, 26 Republicans have endorsed Trump, none have endorsed Haley, although 13 have not yet endorsed anyone.
Of the states that have yet to vote for the candidate, eleven governors have endorsed Trump and two have endorsed Haley. One of these was New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu.
The next batch of delegates will be awarded in Nevada, but thanks to a bizarre system, Trump has already won the state
The next state to pledge delegates is Nevada, but thanks to a quirk in the nominating process, Trump has already won all 30 of the state’s delegates because Haley, as he put it, “decided not to play in Nevada” because his poll numbers were so strong .
That’s why her name isn’t on the election ballot, but oddly enough, Governor Ron DeSantis, who has already dropped out of the race, will appear as a candidate.
On the same day as that caucus, the U.S. Virgin Islands will also hold a primary election for the territory’s four delegates.
Trump referred to the situation in Nevada in a triumphant victory speech in the Granite State on Tuesday evening. “I heard Nikki say, ‘It’s going to South Carolina,’ and I really love South Carolina, but she forgot one thing: next week it’s going to Nevada. And I’d like to announce that we just won Nevada 100 percent.”
A Fox News poll found that 32 percent of Republican voters in New Hampshire said they would not vote for Trump in a national election.
Only about half of Republican voters in New Hampshire identify with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. And about half disagree with Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
According to a CBS poll, Trump won only 23 self-identifying moderate Republican voters and 39 percent of college graduates.
Haley’s last stand will likely be in her home state of South Carolina, if she can hold out that long
Former South Carolinian Nikki Haley fared better than the 20-point defeat than some New Hampshire polls predicted, but she faces a nearly impossible path to the nomination
Haley is from South Carolina and served as the state’s governor from 2011 to 2017, but Trump has received the support of every major conservative figure in the state, making a Haley victory in the Feb. 24 contest difficult to imagine.
“New Hampshire is first in the country, not last in the country. This race is far from over,” Haley told cheering supporters in Concord.
Haley’s team quickly noted that about 5 in 10 primary voters do not support Trump.
Her advisers insist she will stay in the race to serve as a vehicle for anti-Trump forces who still hope he will be forced out of the race due to his legal troubles, or perhaps a national security emergency the health.
And for now, the 52-year-old former governor of South Carolina still has math and donors on her side.
Haley is now scheduled for a fundraising tour with stops in New York, Florida, California and Texas.
Her campaign is also launching a new $4 million ad campaign in South Carolina, starting Wednesday.
But Trump made it clear that he will do everything he can to bury Haley. “She didn’t win, she lost,” he said Tuesday night, decrying Haley’s concession speech. He later posted a message on Truth Social addressed to Haley: “NIKKI CAME LAST, NOT SECOND!”
Trump was flanked by Haley’s home state Sen. Tim Scott and her opponent in many of the Republican Party’s presidential debates, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom have endorsed him.
He indicated that a tougher approach was in the offing. “I don’t get angry,” Trump said, “I get revenge.”
After South Carolina, the contests come quickly and end on June 4, six weeks before the nominee will be crowned at the Republican National Convention
Three days after South Carolina, Michigan will hold its Republican primaries. Next up will be Washington DC on March 3, with North Dakota conservatives meeting a day later.
Then it’s the monster that is Super Tuesday, which will be held on March 5 as voters go to the polls and caucuses in Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma , Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.
A mini Super Tuesday will take place on March 12, when the states of Georgia, Mississippi and Washington hold primaries, while Hawaii holds its caucus.
The territories of Northern Mariana Islands and Guam will hold caucuses on March 15 and 16, respectively.
The primaries will take place on March 19 in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio.
The Louisiana primaries are on March 23.
Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island and Wisconsin all hold primaries on April 2. Wyoming will hold its caucus on April 21. Puerto Rico and Pennsylvania will hold primaries on April 21 and 23, respectively.
The calendar then begins to roll: Indiana will hold its primaries on May 7, and Maryland, Nebraska and West Virginia will hold their primaries a week later. There will be primaries in Kentucky and Oregon on May 21.
The final battles will be held on June 4 in Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.
Biden was also a winner in New Hampshire on Tuesday
President Joe Biden fired the starting gun in the general election race on Tuesday evening, shortly after former President Donald Trump won two of two in the first nominated states.
Joe Biden has not put his name on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary. The results are not binding on congressional delegates. He won anyway, thanks to an aggressive registration campaign.
Biden has pushed the Democratic National Committee to give South Carolina, the state that put him on the path to the White House with a victory in 2020, the party’s first official primary. It is on February 3.
Like Trump, Biden could read good news in the results, with about eight in 10 Democrats approving of his handling of the economy, along with a caveat: About half say he’s too old to run at age 81, and about half disagree. of his handling of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, according to AP VoteCast.
Both men are clearly in leadership positions… for a rematch that many voters say they don’t want.