In New Hampshire, Trump withstands Haley onslaught
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on Jan. 15, 2024, in Des Moines, Iowa; former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks during a campaign event on Jan. 17, 2024, in Rochester, New Hampshire. / Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Joe Raedle/Getty Images CNA Newsroom, Jan 23, 2024 / 21:28 pm (CNA).
Former President Donald Trump won the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday in a closer than expected race, defeating his opponent, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
As of 9:25 p.m. ET Tuesday and with 36% of the vote reporting, Trump was garnering 55% of the vote in the Granite State. Haley trailed the former president, hovering around 43% of the vote.
While the exact margin of Trump’s victory in the state was yet to be seen, the Associated Press and major networks called the race for Trump shortly after the polls closed on Tuesday evening.
Trump’s win follows his historic 30-point margin of victory in the Iowa Caucus last week, and propels him further on his way towards securing the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Prior to this week’s primary, both Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the race. Both also endorsed Trump over Haley.
Haley addressed her supporters following the defeat. In spite of the loss, she said she intends to continue running and that voters do not want a “coronation.”
Haley: race ‘far from over’
“Now you’ve all heard the chatter among the political class,” Haley said. “They’re falling all over themselves saying this race is over. Well I have news for all of them: New Hampshire is first in the nation; it is not the last in the nation. This race is far from over.”
In posts on Truth Social Tuesday evening, Trump called Haley “delusional.”
“Haley said she had to WIN in New Hampshire. SHE DIDN’T!!!” Trump said.
New Hampshire is a state where Trump also strongly performed in 2016, when he won by nearly 20 percentage points and beat out Texas Sen. Ted Cruz with 44.9% of the vote compared to Cruz’s 25.1% of the vote.
This year, however, Haley secured the endorsement of popular New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and polled far better in the state than her national average. According to a compilation of polls from FiveThirtyEight.com, Haley was polling at about 36%, whereas Trump was polling around 54%.
Recent national polls show Trump’s support surpassing 70% among Republican voters, while Haley has stood between 9% and 14%, according to a compilation of polls from RealClear polling. The polls have not yet taken into account DeSantis’s recent exit from the race.
On Monday, the day before the primary, Trump secured an endorsement from the political advocacy group CatholicVote. Brian Burch, the group’s president, announced that the group “will begin working in upcoming primary states, together with the top swing states to register, educate, motivate, and turn out every Catholic voter to back Trump — and defeat Joe Biden.”
“We had four years to watch him,” Burch added, speaking of Trump. “And he delivered. From executive orders, reform on regulations touching abortion, religious liberty, conscience, faith, and families — to wages, jobs, administration appointments, and of course, judges and the Supreme Court.”
Pro-life positioning of the candidates
Neither Trump’s nor Haley’s campaigns have focused much on the issue of abortion, but both have expressed pro-life sentiments in different ways.
In a Fox News town hall on Jan. 10, Trump did not get into specifics about what pro-life policies he would support in a second administration, but told a pro-life voter that “we’re going to get something that people want, that people like.”
The former president also said he was “proud” to have nominated three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe V. Wade. The overturning of Roe v. Wade allowed states to further restrict or outlaw abortion.
During a recent GOP presidential debate, Haley stated that Americans should “find consensus” on the issue of abortion and claimed that a national 15-week ban would be implausible to get passed through Congress.
“Let’s agree on how we can ban late-term abortions, let’s make sure we encourage adoptions and good quality adoptions, and let’s make sure we make contraception accessible, let’s make sure that none of these state laws puts a woman in jail or gives her the death penalty for getting an abortion,” Haley said. “Let’s focus on how to save as many babies as we can and support as many moms as we can and stop the judgment, we don’t need to divide America on this issue anymore.”
The next Republican contests will be the Nevada and U.S. Virgin Island caucuses on Feb. 8. The South Carolina primary will be held on Feb. 24 and the Michigan primary on Feb. 27. Idaho and Michigan caucuses will be held on March 2; the Washington, D.C., primary will be held on March 1–3, and the North Dakota caucus will take place on March 4.
There will be 16 contests on Super Tuesday, which is on March 5: Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia.
