Former President Donald Trump won the New Hampshire Republican primary on Tuesday, cementing his lead in the race for his party’s nomination, while his main rival Nikki Haley faced a setback but refused to concede.
According to network projections by Fox News, ABC News and NBC News, former President Donald Trump secured a victory in the New Hampshire Republican primary on Tuesday, strengthening his position as the frontrunner for his party’s nomination and inching closer to a potential showdown with President Joe Biden later this year.
His main challenger, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, faced a crushing defeat in the state, where she had invested heavily in her campaign. Haley remained the only serious contender after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race over the weekend, and she attempted to portray herself as a moderate and fresh alternative to Trump. However, her criticisms of the former president, whom she accused of having mental decline, failed to sway voters.
With 33% of the votes counted, Trump leads Haley by 53.6% (45.4%), who has already stated that she will not quit the race if the trend is confirmed and the mogul largely outperforms her.
Trump has 57,277 votes versus Haley’s 48,522, according to official data released by local media.
After the results were announced, the former governor of South Carolina congratulated Trump on his win, but did not concede her own electoral bid.
“New Hampshire is the first (primary) in the nation, but not the last,” she said in a speech given shortly after the country’s main networks declared her only opponent in that race the winner.
“The Republican race is far from over,” she said.
For Haley, Trump’s win would benefit both the current president, Democrat Joe Biden, and the vice president, Kamala Harris.
“The Republicans have lost almost every election with Donald Trump. We lost the Senate. We lost the House of Representatives. We lost the White House. We lost in 2018, in 2020 and in 2022. The worst kept secret in politics is how badly Democrats want to run against Trump. “They know that he is the only Republican in the country that Biden can beat,” Haley said.
Dozens of Republican supporters, donors and lawmakers attended Trump’s campaign headquarters, including Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.
Controversial former congressman George Santos, who was expelled from the House of Representatives for having pocketed money from his electoral campaign, also showed up at the campaign command.
“I like Hayley, I have nothing against her, but she is not going to win,” Santos told reporters at the entrance to the Sheraton hotel event hall.
The New Hampshire primaries are the first proper primaries of this electoral cycle in the United States, which started last week for the Republican Party with the Iowa caucuses.
In Iowa, Trump came first with 51% of the vote, followed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (21.2%), former South Carolina Governor and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley (19.1% ) and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy (7.7%).
Along the way, both DeSantis and Ramaswamy dropped out of the primaries and endorsed Trump, leaving the former president and Haley alone in the race.
In the Republican primaries in New Hampshire, there are only 11 delegates at stake of the 2,429 that will be convened at the Republican National Convention that will nominate the winning candidate in mid-July in Milwaukee.
New Hampshire election law also stipulates that theirs must always be the first in the country in each election cycle.
On this occasion, Democrats have wanted to change their primary calendar to diminish the importance of New Hampshire, where the now president, Joe Biden, came in fifth place four years ago.
However, the state has also held the election, in which Biden does not participate, does not have the endorsement of the party and in which delegates will not be allocated.
