Manchester, New Hampshire
Right now, Nikki Haley is the only contender preventing Donald Trump from winning the Republican nomination for a third time in a row and seizing complete control of the party.
In the event that the former governor of South Carolina is unable to pull off an unexpected victory in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, the Republican Party’s nomination contest may have been decided before it even started.
After failing to defeat Trump in the Iowa caucuses and realizing he had little chance of winning, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis withdrew from the campaign on Sunday afternoon and endorsed Trump, making their Granite State match even more crucial.
Trump announced his departure at the same time as he was giving Haley all of his focus and urging Republican voters to give him a resounding primary victory in New Hampshire that would virtually conclude the national nominating race.
Should Haley fail to defeat Trump, or at least come close to doing so, she would find it difficult to justify her continued campaign against the former president and persuade supporters that she is still a wise financial investment.
Haley stated on Sunday afternoon to CNN’s Dana Bash that she is now squarely facing Trump, which is exactly where she always wanted to be.
In this race, there are two participants. That was our goal from the beginning. We are not going to stop.
In South Carolina, the next major primary state, where Haley served as governor and hopes to turn the race around, Trump is already attempting to kill her White House prospects with his unrelenting political machine.
“The Spice Girls, those great philosophers, tell us what you really, really want.” The 76-year-old governor of South Carolina, Henry McMaster, remarked, “That’s what we are here to tell you what we in South Carolina want,” referencing a British girl band from the 1990s in front of an odd crowd of yelling Trump supporters. “What we truly desire is right there,” McMaster remarked, gesturing to a grinning Trump. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina representative Russell Fry asserted that Haley “flip-flops on every position” and was a tool of corporate funders, soft on crime, immigration, and China. “I think the choice is pretty clear with this crowd,” he continued, “Mr. President.” They want Donald Trump to take over as president once more.
“We have almost everybody there supporting us, which is quite an attribute when you have somebody running who was the governor,” Trump had remarked. “All the people of New Hampshire need to know about Nikki Haley is that every globalist, liberal Biden supporter, and ‘Never Trumper’ is on her side,” the former president continued. In her native state of South Carolina, almost every single leader is on our side. Trump has also increased his racially provocative attacks on Haley on social media in recent days. He suggests that, even though Haley is a natural-born citizen, her South Asian origin calls into question her ability to be president based on the birth name her parents gave her.
As he attempts to demonstrate that he is the inevitable nominee, Trump’s approach was an indication of confidence in his position in New Hampshire. Additionally, it was obviously an attempt to scare Haley into abandoning her campaign before it even reached South Carolina, should she fail on Tuesday. If Haley is considering a potential 2028 presidential run, a crushing defeat in her home state could damage her political reputation. However, Republican Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who serves as her main surrogate, emphasized that she just needs to perform well on Tuesday in order to proceed convincingly. “You wanted a one-on-one race heading into Super Tuesday, I’ve always said. With reference to a number of significant state primaries in March, Sununu said News, “I think Super Tuesday is probably where you actually have to start winning states.”
However, if Haley loses New Hampshire—the state that seems to be the most favorable to her—and then stumbles in her own state, it’s difficult to see how she could have a plausible path to the nomination and continue raising money.
Haley needs to make a statement in New Hampshire
Trump’s South Carolina showboating Saturday was another demonstration of his highly organized political operation, which was also on show in Iowa and is far more effective than in his chaotic 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
Late last year, Haley’s campaign took off, raising hopes that she might be uniting the anti-Trump forces in the GOP in a way that would expose the former president, as his detractors have long said, in a GOP primary. Haley’s campaign gained momentum, but it was somewhat dampened by her third-place finish in Iowa. A number of scandals, such as her refusal to attribute the Civil War to slavery, have also cast doubt on her ability to maintain her composure under duress and the viability of her strategy of courting both moderate New Hampshire voters and more conservative grassroots GOP supporters elsewhere.
According to a University of New Hampshire survey for CNN, Trump has widened his advantage among potential GOP voters, receiving 50% of the vote, compared to 39% for Haley. 6% was DeSantis’ position. The race between Haley and Trump on Tuesday will be closely observed to see how that tiny percentage of voters influences the outcome.
However, stunning outcomes and defying expectations are also well-known about New Hampshire. Sen. John McCain defeated George W. Bush in 2000, Hillary Clinton overcame a poll-defying surge to defeat Iowa caucus winner Barack Obama in 2008, and scandal-plagued Bill Clinton revived his fortunes as the “comeback kid” with a second-place finish in 1992. Though Haley may not succeed in her candidacies, the last two at least altered the nature of the race, which is what she is attempting to accomplish.
The number of moderate voters who turn up on Tuesday night will probably determine her fate. In the CNN survey, Haley received 58% of the vote from people who plan to cast an undeclared ballot, or independents as they are known in New Hampshire. Among those who identify as moderate in ideology, she has 71%. Among voters with college degrees, she leads Trump as well. Her issue is that a small portion of New Hampshire’s primary voters come from these constituencies.
The former governor of South Carolina has stepped up her comments in recent days, after months of attempting to find the right balance over how hard to criticize Trump for his 91 criminal charges and assault on democracy in 2021—an abnormal record she euphemistically defines as chaos that “follows him around.” She claims that Trump is showing signs of concern by attacking her more frequently. She is associating him with President Joe Biden, who is confronting age-related challenges, claiming that America cannot afford to elect two 80-year-olds to the presidency. (Trump is 77 and Biden is 81.) Haley, a conventional Republican foreign policy hawk, is also attacking Trump for his camaraderie with despots like China’s communist leadership and Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea.
Haley launched a further attack on Saturday, casting doubt on Trump’s mental state after he seemed to mix her up with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when discussing the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by a mob led by the previous president’s followers. “They say he became confused,” Haley said to Keene, New Hampshire voters. “My worry is, and I don’t mean to sound disparaging, but we can’t have someone else handling the pressures of a presidency who we doubt has the mental capacity to handle it.”
In an effort to increase participation and maybe challenge Trump, Haley is holding a number of events throughout New Hampshire on Sunday. One of them is a debate with tough-talking reality TV star Judith Sheindlin, who is well-known for her lengthy run of the show “Judge Judy.”
Trump replicates the acerbic language from his first inaugural
At his Saturday night rally, Trump painted a picture of a country in crisis, plagued by open borders, crime, and foreign embarrassments. This is precisely one year from January 20, 2025, when he hopes to be sworn in for another term, and exactly seven years after his scathing inauguration speech about “American carnage.” By repeating his appeals court claims that presidents should be completely immune from prosecution, he increased concerns about the possible nature of a second term. He falsely said that supporters who had broken through security to enter the Capitol on January 6 were being held as “hostages.” He also complimented Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, saying, “It’s nice to have a strong man running your country,” despite Orban’s recent crackdown on press and academic freedoms.
Most of the lower bowl of a hockey rink in downtown Manchester was packed with event goers, many of whom had stood in line for hours in the bitter cold and snow. The numerals 45 and 47, which denoted Trump’s likely election as the 45th and 47th president, were shown in the spots meant for recording goals on the old scoreboard at center ice.
The crowd erupted in applause when Trump performed a stand-up comedy routine, and fans sang along to the Village People’s “YMCA” as the evening got underway. At the end, though, as Trump turned up the demagoguery and spoke over ominous music, it took a dark, dystopian turn. Edward Young, a Manchester native who had come from Brick, New Jersey for his 68th Trump rally wearing shoes with the name “Trump” in stars and stripes, expressed his support for the former president by saying, “I believe this country is in danger of dying, of ceasing to exist.”
It is foolish to base election decisions on voter turnout. However, Trump’s event demonstrated the ardor of his fans across the country. In the CNN survey, over 46% of New Hampshire’s potential GOP primary voters indicated they would support Trump if he got the nomination, compared to just 25% who felt the same way about Haley. After Sunday, the former governor of South Carolina will have just one day to make up for her lack of passion in Iowa.
